


In Isolation

by zhenyilani



Series: Lin Beifong Centric AU [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Beifongs with feelings, Chi Blocking, Chief Beifong - Freeform, Children, Earth Kingdom (Avatar), Earth Kingdom Strong, F/M, Fire Lord Izumi - Freeform, Linzin - Freeform, Non Benders (Avatar), Old Republic Era, Order of the White Lotus, Republic City, Single Parents, Strong Female Characters, United Republic of Nations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-05-19 07:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14869689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhenyilani/pseuds/zhenyilani
Summary: Prequel to Lives Forgotten. Lin Beifong vowed her children would never be neglected no matter how busy she became. She would not make the same mistakes as her mother, and grandparents. Yet somehow, like herself, her children must grow up without their father, and like her mother, within the boundaries of their walled estate on the outskirts away from the city, in isolation.





	1. 159AG

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to my story, "Lives Forgotten". This chapter takes place eight months after Lin Beifong and Tenzin are broken up by the White Lotus (when Lin was one month pregnant with Kang, and only HuiFan knew but didn't say anything because she thought her words were useless and nobody would listen to them anyways). Lin moved her children into a massive estate in the mountains that surround Republic City, safe away from all of the crime and gossip of the metropolitan area. Aunt Kya visited for a while to try to work through HuiFan's mental trauma (like how Katara had to 'heal'/sooth Jet's head before he could recount what happened under Lake Laogai). HuiFan cares for her mother and runs the household whenever her mother is gone (at work or sick/injured).
> 
> Song is "Light" by Sleeping At Last and this fic is kind of inspired by that one AMV by Zoopoe on YouTube: ATLA/Korra- Aang's Family.
> 
> I chose the names based on the meanings listed on some random baby name page.
> 
> HungJian (born in 150AG) is supposed to be "courageous strength"
> 
> HuiFan (151AG) Clever Lethal
> 
> JinKun (153AG) Golden Earth
> 
> JieXue (156AG) Heroic and Learning/Study/School
> 
> Xiaoyu (158AG) Filial piety/being good to parents, and Yu can mean jade, delightful, or rain.
> 
> Kang (159AG) Healthy or well being

May these words be the first to find your ears

The world is brighter than the sun now that you're here

Though your eyes will need some time to adjust

To the overwhelming light surrounding us

I'll give you everything I have; I'll teach you everything I know

I promise I'll do better

I will always hold you close; But I will learn to let you go

I promise I'll do better

I will soften every edge; I'll hold the world to its best

And I'll do better

With every heartbeat I have left; I will defend your every breath

And I'll do better

'Сause you are loved, you are loved more than you know

I hereby pledge all of my days to prove it so

Though your heart is far too young to realize

The unimaginable light you hold inside 

**159AG**

"Mommy, What will you name him?" eight-year-old HuiFan asked peering into the bloody tub where her mother held the sleeping baby boy.

"Kang."

"Why?"

"Because I am tired. I am done with legacies and with fancy names. I just want this boy to be healthy, and to survive, longer than me at least," the mother sighed looking down at the mess in the bathtub.

"You're hurt!" HuiFan gasped noting now just how much blood had come out with the baby just how pale her mother looked.

"My love, I'm fine. I promise. Will you bring me a towel for Kang? And that length of string on the counter and a pair of scissors from the drawer?"

HuiFan ran over to pull the requested items off the counter and the scissors from the drawer. Her mother set about wiping the blood and paste and other gross fluids from the baby's skin. She tied off his umbilical chord about an inch off his belly and cut it, then wiped down her own chest and held the boy to her breast as he instinctively began sucking.

"Mama, I want to get you a healer!" HuiFan said.

"No! Remember? No one can know about us. The nursing staff may speak and sell stories about you and me!"

"But Ma! You're dying! I have to do something!"

"I'm not, Love. I have survived hung Jian. You, JinKun, Jiexue and Xiaoyu just fine. I can survive Kang too!" Her mother said weakly.

"But you weren't as tired after Jiexue and Xiaoyu!" HuiFan argued.

"I was. You were just too young to notice," her mother said faintly, her eyes fluttering closed, before only opening half way again.

"I notice. I know you," HuiFan said sadly with her hand on the ceramic bathtub, feeling both her mother and her new baby brother's heartbeats with her seismic sense.

Her mother wiped a hand clean on the towel and put it behind her eldest daughter's neck. "I love you, HuiFan. No matter how things may change, never forget who you are." Her mother tilted her head back and fell asleep in the bathtub with the new baby in her arms, and her legs still spread. HuiFan took the opportunity to run. She ran as fast as she could. She wrote a note and went to the guard at the gate.

"You WILL go to Air Temple Island, locate a woman named Kya from the Southern Water Tribe and hand her this. If anyone other than Kya of the Southern Water Tribe sees this letter, I will have your family's heads displayed on my bedroom wall next to the Tiger swords I will use to decapitate them!" HuiFan ordered the guard with her mother's infamous scowl marring her face. The guard gulped, took the letter, bowed to her and took off.

HuiFan returned to her mother's side in the master bathroom on the fourth floor of the main resident's house. She still hadn't woken. HuiFan placed a hand on the bath tub and listened to the baby's heart beat gain strength strong as her mother heart beat slowly began to fade.

"Come on, Aunt Kya! Hurry!" HuiFan cried, gripping the bathtub with her tiny hands as tears flowed down her eyes steadily. An hour passed before the guard returned with Kya.

"Oh my!" Kya gasped at the sight of the blood and the two unconscious beings in the bathtub. She turned on the sink and filled it with water to use to heal. Kya covered her hands in the water and searched her friend's body, finding massive where the baby came out. Kya healed the wound, but the new mother still didn't wake.

"She's lost a lot of blood, HuiFan," Kya said sadly putting an arm around the eight year old girl.

"You're a master waterbender, Aunt Kya. You are Master Katara's daughter! Can't you just bloodbend it back into her?" HuiFan asked.

"HuiFan, blood is not like that. It changes when it comes out of the body. It won't have the same properties if I just 'put it back in her'. Besides, it could have been infected by something on the bath tub or in the air," Kya explained to the young girl. "Why didn't you call for me sooner? By telephone would have been faster than sending a sentry."

"The White Lotus forbade us from contacting anyone on Air Temple Island by phone in case someone overheard or the wrong person picked up the line," HuiFan reminded Kya. "And I couldn't call the hospital because the nurses might speak and I figured since you already know us, it would be okay to-" HuiFan's controlled crying became consumed by sobs.

Her aunt sighed. "I'm sorry, for all that you have had to go though, HuiFan," Kya said softly.

"She will live, won't she?" HuiFan sniffled.

"Yes. She will live." Kya washed the blood and other fluids away from the new mother's body using her waterbending and discarded the placenta in a bag to burn after using blood bending. Then Kya lifted up the younger woman and baby and carried her naked into the other room. She wrapped both mother and baby in diapers and let them rest.

"I am glad you called me when you did. She had lost a lot of blood, but I was able to stop her from losing more. She just needs time to rest now and recover and replenish her own blood supply. You're a good daughter," Kya said putting a hand on HuiFan's head. The little earthbender hugged her Aunt.

"Even though we don't live on Air Temple Island anymore, you will still come visit us, right? Even though Dad has left, you still love us?"

"Just because your Dad had to leave, doesn't mean he loves you any less. He can't stop loving you. He just had to rebuild the Air Nation,"

"I know, but YOU will come visit, right?" HuiFan was pleading, desperately. Tears welled up in the girls eyes as she nearly lost hope.

"Yes, I will come visit you," Kya said sweetly holding the earthbender in her arms and sitting on the bed beside her sleeping mother. She took out a little blob of water and spun it into a vortex in her hand making HuiFan laugh. HuiFan loved all of the different bending art forms but was stuck with earth. So boring. So common according to her.

Kya stayed the night to monitor her friend and the new baby's condition for a full twenty four hours before having to leave again.

"You will be able to manage being Lady of the House, won't you?" Kya asked.

"I don't really have a choice, do I? HungJian is not really the responsible type when it comes to these things," HuiFan shrugged mentioning her older brother.

"I'm sorry you now have so much on your shoulders, I truly am," Kya said.

"It's okay. We all knew it would happen eventually. It's good practice now since mom is still here."

"I suppose. Remember to keep her body temperature stable with cold compresses on her head and blankets or fans. Put Kang to her breast every few hours. I showed you how to burp him and change his diaper, right?"

"Yes."

"And have Mr. Doan prepared some rice porridge for when Lin wakes. Or something smooth and warm with not too strong flavors. I would say to try to get her to eat around dinner time this evening. Her entire torso will be pretty tender for a while so if she doesn't want to move yet, don't make her until tomorrow. Tomorrow, try to get her to walk at least an hour, with breaks."

"Thank you, Aunt Kya."

"I wish I could stay longer. I love you, my little niece."

"I love you too!" HuiFan said wiping her eyes and hugging the waterbending master and her biological father's sister. She ran back into the house.

"Can we see mommy now?" Seven-year-old JinKun asked as soon as she entered. He was holding their three year old sister's, Jiexue's hand. Nine-year-old HungJian was holding one-year-old Xiaoyu.

"Yes but you all have to be REALLY quiet, okay? Mama lost a lot of blood and needs to heal right now," HuiFan told them.

"Okay!" JinKun whispered.

"We can be quiet!"HungJian promised adjusting his hold on their one-year-old sister, Xiaoyu.

They all climbed onto their mother's large bed slowly and silently, but not silently enough for the master earthbender to remain sleeping. She recognized the feeling of her children on the blankets as she woke but didn't open her eyes, watching them with her seismic sense, avoiding the light. A smile formed on her extremely pale face.

"Thank you, loves," she said to all of them in a barely audible whisper.

They knew something had gone wrong with the birth.

"Aunt Kya came," HungJian informed his mother.

"I know. I can feel her handiwork. Thank you for getting her, HuiFan." their mother replied quietly.

"I knew you needed a healer. I knew you've never been that week before. And Aunt Kya said a little while longer, you wouldn't have made it. Mama please don't do that anymore,"HuiFan begged wrapping both hands her mother's arm.

"Do what?"

"Almost not make it because you're too stubborn or prideful to seek help. We need you here. You're all we have since Daddy left to rebuild the Air Nation. We need you!" HuiFan said holding her mother's arm while HungJian held her band and Jin Kun placed a hand on the arm that held the new baby Kang.

"I am sorry, my loves. It was selfish of me to let pride cloud my judgment. I will be better next time. I will ask for help," their mother promised.

'Сause you are loved, you are loved more than you know

I hereby pledge all of my days to prove it so

Though your heart is far too young to realize

The unimaginable light you hold inside

I'll give you everything I have; I'll teach you everything I know

I promise I'll do better

I will always hold you close; But I will learn to let you go

I promise I'll do better

I will rearrange the stars; Pull 'em down to where you are

I promise, I'll do better

With every heartbeat I have left; I'll defend your every breath

I promise I'll do better

I will soften every edge; Hold the world to its best

I promise I'll do better

With every heartbeat I have left; I'll defend your every breath

The mother sang to them until they all fell asleep with their heads and bodies all pressed against each other in the large bed. She smiled and tilted her head back and closed her eyes for a short while, falling asleep to six tiny, comforting heartbeats echoing her own. Six tiny lives were completely dependent on her to grow and thrive. Each day she walked more, longer, faster, and stronger. She walked around the gardens trusting the older children to watch Kang sleep while she walked then she took over for the rest of the day. She brought the baby to the children's sparring practice wrapping his ears to muffle the sound of rocks being smashed into sand and metal making contact with other alloys and compositions and other bangs from his delicate ears. She would not let another life interfere with the individual attention she gave each child. No. She refused to neglect any of them them as her own mother did to her and her sister.

After the mother and her baby were healthy enough, the mother resumed her old routine that included training her children for three hours before going to the city to work for twelve. Even though they had a team of chefs and servants, she would come home, cook dinner, and then eat with all of her children, asking about their day, their triumphs and struggles. After dinner they had family downtime in the cozy living room. They would read independently but be physically together, play board games or card games before sleeping and each enjoy a cup of tea. In their new house, the children all had their own rooms but chose to spend most of their nights together with Mom in her bed, and she didn't mind it in the least. As long as they had each other, they were happy.


	2. 160AG Spring

**160AG Spring**

A year after Kang was born, Kya came back to visit.

"What a surprise!" Lin exclaimed with a warm smile as she invited the waterbender into her home.

"I wanted to make sure everything is okay!" Kya said entering. "How are your youngest?"

"Healthy. He is more than I could ever ask for," Lin replied leading Kya to the children's play room where they spent most of their day off relaxing. JinKun was spinning some rocks in his hand while Kang's eyes followed the rocks with complete fascination. HungJian and HuiFan were teaching Xiaoyu to walk while Jiexue showed no interest in her little sister's new accomplishment and busied herself digging through a toy box for just the right thing to play with.

"How are you?" Kya asked Lin.

"Getting by," Lin smiled looking down at the little lives. She closed her eyes for a moment to feel their hearts still beating in their chests. She hadn't killed any of them yet. That must be a significant accomplishment.

"Aunt Kya!" HuiFan jumped up followed by her two earthbending brothers. They momentarily abandoned the babies to hug their Aunt.

"Hi my little badgermoles!" Kya exclaimed returning their hug.

"What brings you to the estate?" HungJian asked.

"I was just passing through and wanted to check on everything would you mind if I stayed a few days?" Kya asked.

"Not at all!" Lin said folding her arms, shaking her head with a smile.

"We love it when you come, Aunt Kya!" HuiFan exclaimed.

Kya smiled at the children. They seemed okay a year and eight months after leaving Air Temple Island and their father behind.

When Kya came, she sparred with them and played with them. She helped relax HuiFan's head. The girl's nightmares were becoming less frequent but she still seemed to exhibit some signs of PTSD and anxiety, but Kya's healing sessions helped ease the pain temporarily. They set up sentries to guard the airspace above the estate so they could play outside in the garden and not worry about accidentally being seen.

It started off as a flick of water after JinKun dipped his hand into the bird feeder to save a drowning worm. Kya splashed him back and then they battled. Lin walked out of the house with Xiaoyu on her hip, Kang in her arms and Jiexue clutching her knee and standing on her foot to find half the garden had been reduced to a muddy, swampy mess as the three earthbenders chased their waterbending aunt who turned their rocks to mud and tossed it back while they screamed.

The Chief Of police took a deep breath and sat at one of the many garden tables on the patio above and watched them play. The Butler brought her a glass of tea and water for the babies. While she breastfed Kang, the other two snacked on a small pile of lychees, learning to peel them and spit out the seeds as the earthbenders played.

Lin spent the remainder off the hour wiping babies' chins and watching her older children and one of her best friends friend further tear up the garden. But she wouldn't be a buzz kill. No. That was Aunt Katara's job when Lin was little and she remembered hating it. The children and Kya finally trudged towards the house after nearly a full hour of intense battling, utterly exhausted and starving.

"You're just in time," Lin said as the butler brought our plates of ingredients to make spring rolls on the patio.

Hui Fan took a stance and bent every last drop of mud, every speck of dirt from her body. JinKun and HungJian followed.

"You both missed a lot," Lin said casually, sitting her one year old, Kang on her knee securing him in the crook of her elbow while she wrapped her roll with two hands and dipped it in peanut sauce before taking a bite.

"Awww!" HungJian groaned, jealous of his little sister's prodigious skill in earthbending.

"Turn around," Lin instructed bending the remainder of the dirt off of her messy sons with ease.

They all sat down.

"Xiaoyu, use all of your fingers or you'll tear the rice paper," Lin said to her youngest, a two year old little baby girl.

"Just because we can afford a team of servers and chefs doesn't mean you shouldn't learn to prepare your own food," Lin said to the girl when she got frustrated with her uncooperative rice paper.

Kya smiled.

That evening, Lin picked up the morning paper that she always neglected until after dinner so that she wouldn't ever go to work angry while Kya picked up the 'Tales of the Elephant Koi's Journey to the North Pole", and read to the children.

_Councilman Tenzin and the Air Acolyte Pema debut their first child to the world! Three-month-old Jinora is the epitome of health and hope for the future of the Air Nation. All signs indicate she will be an airbender!_

Lin tossed the paper down in the table and focused on her tea. _They're so confident this will work out, huh? Tenzin and that non-bender? They doubted me. Doubted I could be a mother. Doubted I could produce airbending children. Kept all of ours a secret. Nobody knew when HungJian was born ten years ago. Nobody knew about HuiFan. But maybe it is better that way. The triads won't come looking to snatch them. Nor will the Dai Li... Hopefully. Good luck Pema, and good luck to you, baby Jinora._

Lin picked up the newspaper again and skipped the remainder of that article and read the crime, politics, entertainment, and international news sections. She found she liked these new puzzles they journalists included in the newspaper, sudoku and crosswords and trivia. It gave the quick reader something to do. When Kya finished telling the story, it was time for them all to go to bed.

"I'll be back in a bit, Okay? I just need some time alone with aunt Kya," Lin said kissing the heads of each of the children occupying her bed.

"So how are you doing?" Kya asked Lin regarding the article about Tenzin, Pema, and their new baby, Jinora.

"Fine, I suppose. It's probably better this way, that nobody knows about mine. The triads would have a field day with my little ones, while they're still so young and helpless. I am sure I would be beside myself if anything happened to them no matter how emotionless I try to be. I would turn over the entire city like a field being readied for the next crop rotation,"

"Your guards are well trained. Don't worry about their safety," Kya said turning down her bed in the guest room.

"But they're still just guards. They don't have a vested interest in my children's well-being. I just provide their paycheck at the end of the week. And the triads could probably pay more," Lin replied.

"I highly doubt that considering you're a Beifong. You practically own half of the world. The half that Sato doesn't own,"

Lin frowned at her, "Sato is completely dependent on Earthen Fire Refineries for ALL of their metal and platinum."

"So you do own the entire world,"

"But I know I shouldn't have to spend my entire fortune just to protect my children. I want at least some of it to teach them, to arm them, with tools and mentors and invest in the future..."

"How about this? Maybe you could let the guards play with the kids. They will make friends with them and want to protect the kids even more, like little siblings."

"Is that even appropriate?" Lin asked hesitantly.

"I don't see why not. I can interview and screen some tomorrow for a trial run. And they could help train Hungjian, HuiFan and JinKun with their earth and metalbending!"

"Do you really think that will work?"

"Yeah!"

"Hm... Don't do anything yet. I'll talk to them at the next all hands meeting on Friday."

"Okay, great,"

"Is there anything else you need Kya, before I sleep? I should probably get going now since I do have work tomorrow morning."

"I'll manage if anything does comes up. Be safe, Little Linny." Kya said hugging the younger woman.

Kya stayed for two weeks, and supervised interaction between the children and some of the female guards. "And if you try anything to hurt them, I'll skewer you and your whole family onto an icicle and eliminate you from the gene pool!" Kya threatened Lin's guards while she was at work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn't believe that after "growing up together" with Tenzin, that Lin wouldn't be viewed as family. I think Kya at least would check up on Lin every now and then even if she was on some spiritual quest that took her all around the world. And Bumi would try, but he'd just be a little too much Bumi for Lin's patience. So Kya makes regular appearances at the Beifong Estate for several years until... people change. Don't forget to leave a review! I would love to know what you think!


	3. 160AG Summer

**160AG Summer**

About a month and a half later, there was a scuffle at the gates.

Lin looked out of the window from the second floor of the residence house and saw fire.

"HuiFan! You're in charge!" She said thrusting Kang into her nine-year-old daughter's arms and opening the window. She ran across the roof top and jumped into the front courtyard then launched herself over the gates, erecting a wall as she landed before kicking it, knocking the fire bender into the door. Then she lowered the wall.

"We're sorry Ma'am, for disturbing you!" guards apologized for failing to deter the firebender from the property.

"Lin!" the voice called from under the crimson hood.

"Zumi?!" Lin asked peaking under the hood to see the Fire Lord had graced her with her presence.

"Kya told me everything! I had to come see for myself!" Izumi said pulling off the hood of her traveling cloak.

"You know this intruder?" the guards asked.

"She's the Fire lord," Lin said casually opening the gates and helping her old friend up.

The guards all exchanged uncertain glances and bowed.

"And nobody knows I'm here!" Izumi told them before following Lin inside.

"What are you doing snooping around the outskirts of Republic City? Why didn't you just tell them who you were?"

"I wanted to surprise you!"

"You know I hate surprises,"

"Yes,"

"So what did Kya tell you, exactly?"

"That you have six beautiful little babies! I thought about bringing Iroh and Ursa to come play with them but-"

"What?! Damn Kya! She was sworn to secrecy!"

"You know Kya on cactus juice!"

"Spirits! Next time she shows her face at these gates, I'm going to bury her in an avalanche!" Lin roared. Izumi just laughed.

"So it's true? You and Tenzin had a thing?"

"Nobody is supposed to know! To protect Pema and this new kid, Jinora," Lin replied.

"What about protecting you, little Linny? What about your kids?" Izumi asked putting a warm, reassuring hand on the earthbender's shoulder.

"They understand," Lin replied shrugging the hand off her shoulder and letting Izumi into her house.

They walked through other entertaining and reception rooms, courtyards, and hallways finally reaching the main residence house. "They're upstairs in their play room," Lin said bending the earth off of her feet before entering, while the fire lord slipped off her boots respectfully.

They walked up together.

"Mama, you brought someone with you?" a young girl inquired from the playroom.

"Is it Aunt Kya?" a young boy asked the girl.

"If it were Aunt Kya, I would be able to tell! I know Aunt Kya's footsteps and heartbeat. This is a stranger!" the girl replied with an brusque air of annoyance.

"She's an earthbender with seismic sense?" Izumi asked with interest.

"Yes. The three that are bending are all earthbenders. The White Lotus didn't think I could—" she stopped.

"Have airbenders?"

"Yeah," Lin sighed. They reached the door to the playroom.

"Children, will you all stand?" Lin asked. The kids. They stood up.

"Lin, you don't have to! I don't call you Chief in front of my children!" Izumi replied

"This is Fire Lord Izumi," Lin said to her children.

For a moment they were stunned. Then they all bowed.

"Just call me Aunt Zumi," Izumi said. She turned. "Lin, they ARE beautiful!"

"Growing up with a blind mother, makes you really not care about that kind of thing." Lin grumbled, frowning for a minute in silence before speaking again. "There you saw them! Now you can leave!"

"Now now! You can't get rid of me that easily! I haven't seen you in like five years!" Izumi said.

Lin growled again. "Fine! You can stay," she sighed in defeat "Nora, will you watch the children while I give our guest a tour of the property?" she asked a passing maid.

"Of course!" one of the maids said joining the children in the play room while Lin waved for the Fire Lord to follow.

"Did mom really just try to kick out the Fire Lord?" HungJian asked in disbelief.

"Did the Fire Lord really just come to our house?" HuiFan asked in even further disbelief.

"Who will teach them?" Izumi asked as they walked out the back doors onto a magnificently sculpted white marble patio with a couple white painted light oak deck tables and chairs under large umbrellas.

"Mostly me. I let them spar with the guards occasionally. When they're older, if they start becoming defiant pains in my ass, Su offered to take them to Zaofu for the summer, just for a change of scenery. She promised to make them realize just how easy I am to deal with," Lin replied with her head hung down.

"Really? You're speaking with your sister again?" Izumi asked.

"Just in letters. I sent her a photograph and wrote in code, just in case it was intercepted,"

"And she replied?"

"Yeah,"

They walked down the steps of the deck and entered the expansive gardens, taking the wing of the boar path to the northern wall that faced the city. They both climbed up to sit on the shingled roof of the wall and look out on the metropolitan area below.

"It really is a wretched city," Lin sighed tucking her chin between her knees. The Fire Lord put an arm around her and leaned her face on Lin's Head. "I hate your father and Avatar Aang's brainchild. The Bending Triads never cease to be at each other's throats and terrorizing the civilians. Who ever thought the four nations could live in peace in such close proximity?"

"The four nations do live in piece. Neighborhoods quarreling with each other is nothing compared to global warfare," Izumi replied.

"I know. I just sometimes feel so alone dealing with it. The council is even more useless now that Tenzin is on it permanently,"

"What is wrong with having Tenzin on the council?"

"He thinks that there is a non-violent approach to everything and is constantly pushing the passive stances, reducing our budget at the Police Department, and taking no affirmative action on anything!"

"How often do you have to see him?"

"Every Friday afternoon for the weekly report I have to present to the council,"

"Other than Tenzin being Tenzin, how is the city?"

"Alright, I suppose. This new 'pro-bending' thing is becoming more and more popular. They have a massive arena now, on the bay and we've been asked to provide the additional security. Shouldn't private events be privately secured?"

"Yeah. I can relate with that. People can be so demanding," Izumi sighed.

"Lady Beifong, Jiexue is throwing a tantrum and she's been inconsolable for about about an hour now," an attendant said from the base of the wall.

"Coming," Lin said standing up on the roof of the wall with Izumi before they both jumped down into the garden and walked towards the house.

"You let her cry for an hour?" Izumi asked, slightly surprised.

"If I always come instantly, she will never stop crying. I don't want her to be spoiled. I want her to struggle," Lin explained as they walked up the stairs. The four year old was pounding her fists on the stone floor screaming while her other siblings just knelt around her just watching with uncertainty. Lin walked up to the girl and picked her up off the floor, standing her on her feet, not yet hugging or comforting, but looking into her eyes soothingly.

"Speak," the usually cold, stern Chief of Police said to the four year old. "What happened?"

"I missed you," Jiexue explained rubbing her large eyes with her tiny fist. "I thought you'd left us."

"Even when I leave, I am always with you, in your heart," Lin told the girl touching her flat baby chest.

The little girl looked at her mother's grown hand and then up at her mother's face and threw her short little arms around her mother's neck and hugged her. "I don't like it when you leave!"

"I don't like it either, but we all have responsibilities, don't we?" Lin asked holding the girl behind the head and neck, rubbing circles on her back.

"Motherhood suits you, though I felt no tremors when she was pounding her fists. She doesn't create earthquakes like you and Su did as babies," Izumi said.

"I know," Lin sighed.

"So, I won't be an earthbender?" Jiexue asked sadly.

"We don't think so, but don't worry about that. You don't have to bend anything for me to still love you," Lin replied holding her tight, trying to slow her own rapidly beating heart that she knew at lease HuiFan could also feel.

"But how will I protect myself? I am still a Beifong aren't I? Beifongs aren't supposed to need anybody to keep them safe at night," Jiexue wimpered. Lin's heart broke for her four year old. Why did she feel this pressure? Lin had never even told her children what Toph ingrained into hers and Su's minds since their births, but somehow, they knew, just by watching, they knew what the Beifong name meant to the world. Maybe it WAS just in their blood.

"Jiexue," Izumi said kneeling beside them. "My own mother was never a bender, and trust me, she got along just fine." Izumi pulled out a triple bladed throwing knife and smiled. "With these, she was still able to best soldiers twice her age, firebenders, swordsmen, spearmen, seasoned soldiers, prison guards, war generals, and even your grandmother Katara, your grandfather, Avatar Aang and your Grandmother Toph with these. This is only one of many different weapons you can choose to learn to use. You can still be a warrior, Jiexue. You can still learn to protect yourself. I can teach you, if you like. But remember, you still are only four years old." Izumi said reaching out to touch the four year old's tear stained face.

"I that what you're afraid of?" Lin asked her four year old. "Not being able to protect yourself?"

"That I will always need to be saved," Jiexue whispered as if it were a sin to consider such a thing.

"Awwwww! Jiexue, you are only four years old! You have time! Don't worry," Lin said pulling the ribbon out of the little girl's hair so she could run her fingers through it. Maybe the knot was too tight and had been pulling for a while. Lin doubted it but decided to try anyways. She always felt relaxed when she let her hair down after work.

"So would you like me to teach you how to use these?" Izumi asked the little girl.

Jiexue nodded and Izumi placed the three bladed thing in the girl's little hand.

"This is not a toy," Izumi emphasized.

Jiexue nodded and folded the blades closed into each other and clutched the weapon to her chest before turning away from Izumi to bury her face in her mother's neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter was okay! I just love writing about the Chief of Police being a huge softie when no one is looking. As I said in my story on the beach, I think the woman has a heart bigger than Ba Sing Se. All comments and criticisms and feedback are greatly appreciated!


	4. 161AG

"Mom, why can't I practice knife-throwing with Aunt Zumi?" three year old Xiaoyu asked climbing into her mother's lap while HuiFan was sparring her brothers and JieXue practiced with Izumi who corrected her arm positioning and throw technique with her hands and feet.

"When you can get a sandbag in a bucket from twenty feet away, I will put a knife in your hand, but until then, stop asking," Lin answered firmly. "Other people's safety matters too, you know." Xiaoyu sighed and picked up her pile of little sandbags and walked over to the line her mother made in the stone floor and looked at the stone bucket placed twenty feet across the room. She tossed one bean back and over shot the bucket bu four feet. Then was under by three. She stomped her foot. No tremors. Still no bending. Little Xiaoyu wiped tears of frustration away from her eyes and tried again while Lin watched with Kang in her lap, fiddling with a figurine of sorts.

If Lin were Toph, Xiaoyu would be scolded for tearbending and told to toughen up or else she will be in for a very hard life. But Lin was not Toph. She would let her children cry. She would let them be children.

_It is okay. She is only three. She has time._


	5. 162AG Summer

Fire Lord Izumi came for a week at a time, three times that year, and Aunt Kya came for a week at a time five times that year, overlapping with Izumi's visits. Lin didn't bury Kya in quicksand like she had promised, but thanked her for telling Izumi.

"I don't know how I would have consoled a non-bender without you. Everything with my own mother involved us taking over her place as the 'Greatest Earth Bender in the World' once she died. And neither Su or I were ever good enough for her expectations. While she took down every single guard in the Earth King's palace as a twelve year old, I could not even defeat the fifty other kids at the Police Academy in under fourteen minutes," Lin sighed.

"Your mom made you fight all the pupils at once?" Kya asked.

"But it sounds like you still defeated them eventually, so I won't judge," Izumi said with a smile as the three friends sat on the wall overlooking Republic City.

Lin smiled. "You guys are the best friends anyone could ask for!"

"Awww! We love you too, Linny!" Kya said throwing her arms around Lin while Izumi turned to her with a worried expression. Rather than return the hug, she shoved Kya off the wall with one strong Beifong punch to the arm.

"What was that for?" Kya asked.

"That's how I show affection!" Lin replied with a smile.

Izumi smirked. "My father told me Toph did the same thing to him. Wise women learn from others, Kya. Don't hug a Beifong."

"Shut up!" Kya said standing up clumsily brushing off her skirts. Lin and Izumi laughed.

They went in for dinner when the sun set.

"Mama! Aunt Kay! Aunt Zumi! Watch this!" Hung Jian yelled running into the dining room. He ran along the wall then did a front tuck as his six year old little sister threw one of her knives at him, catching his shirt mid flight pinning it to the wall, so that HungJian flipped right out of it.

Lin nearly collapsed from a heart attack.

"Don't— ever do that again! It is too risky to practice with your brother as a target!" Lin said clutching her chest, stabilizing herself against her two friends.

Huifan roared with laughter from her seat. "Mom, you should hear your heart beat!" the little earth bending prodigy said with one foot on the ground.

"Oh think I can't _**feel**_ it?" Lin asked sarcastically taking a seat."Remember the rules at the dinner table?"

"No bending or knife throwing," the children chorused.

"Except for-" Lin began sitting at the head of the table.

"Aunt Kya when she makes stewed sea prunes," the children recited. As Kya bent a serving of her world famous stewed sea prunes into their bowls.

Izumi laughed. "I cannot get over how precious they are!"

"What do you think of bringing Iroh and Ursa by next time?"

"I am not sure they could keep a secret as big as this from their friends at the Royal Academy for the Fire Nation's future Lords and Ladies," Izumi explained.

"They are young," Lin agreed.

"They'd have too much fun then go brag about it for an eternity to everyone they meet," Izumi sighed.

"Mom! HungJian flicked a pebble at my head!" HuiFan yelled.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

Lin flicked a pebble at both their heads. "Shut up, you two. Since I am the matriarch of this house, only I can flick pebbles at any of you! Just eat your food and then you can go play again!" Lin barked.

The children settled again in their seats and ate as quietly as a eleven year old and twelve year old could eat. Lin pressed her foot into the ground to monitor the heart beats of her six children. Good, no tension. No anger, they were just playing. Then one heart began to flutter slightly. She looked over at Jiexue. She looked like she was about to sneeze. But why so violently? She gasped twice, and when she sneezed. Everyone ducked as half of the dishes on the dining room table flew into the one wall while JieXue was pushed back out of her chair and into the other wall, head first before falling to the ground unconscious.

Kya jumped out of her seat, bending water out of the pouch instinctively and checked the girl's head which hit the stone wall of the mansion first.

Lin just stood by her chair stunned. Don't be dead. Don't be dead. Don't be dead... She couldn't move.

"Just a minor concussion," Kya told them. An overwehlming sense of relief flooded Lin's body and she managed to take a step towards her six year old girl.

"Mommy, does this mean JieXue is an airbender?" JinKun asked looking up at Lin who just sat there stunned.

"I think so," Lin said quietly.

"Are you going to tell Tenzin?" Kya asked that evening while the children played pai sho, cards, and soldier on the floor.

"What do I tell him? So yeah, your daughter by me is an airbender, let's get back together so you can train her?" Lin asked.

"Well no,"

"How about, 'you need a new cabinet of councillors since they'll all be gone by morning,'?" Lin asked cracking her knuckles.

"What if his girl with that Air Acolyte turns out to be a non-bender?" Izumi asked hopefully.

"What does it matter? I will not stoop to her level and break up an already-established relationship. I am a Beifong, I can take care of myself and my family by myself. I will train her," Lin decided.

"But you're not an airbender," Kya reminded her.

"So? I learned nearly everything Tenzin learned, growing up. You would not believe me if I told you how many times a week I ditched the academy to be with him on air temple island even if that meant enduring hours of Aang reciting old poetry by various gurus that may or may not have existed," Lin replied.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Izumi asked.

"Yes," Lin replied getting into bed with her three youngest children while the oldest three were too old to sleep together.

The next day, Jiexue didn't train her knives or play with her siblings.

"I don't want to be an airbender," she cried to her mother.

"Why?"

"Because there is no one to teach me!"

"I can teach you,"

"But you're not even an airbender, let alone a master."

"But my best friend growing up was."

"Our father?"

"Yes,"

"He's still alive, isn't he? Why can't he teach us?"

"Things were- complicated between us and- now we can't see each other as we used to,"

"But didn't you love each other?"

"Yes, but now he loves another,"

"I thought love was forever."

"A mother's love for her children is forever, yes. But a mother's love for another- that is completely different."

"What about a father's love for his children?" Jiexue asked.

Lin sighed. "That's entirely different, and very complicated. Jiexue, listen to me, my love. You are an airbender, and that's that. You don't have to become a master, but you should at least learn to control your power, and that takes training. How else can you protect yourself, and your siblings if you're at risk of a concussion every time you sneeze?"

"I guess,"

"Let me help you, Baby!" Lin said tucking a loose hair behind the girl's ear.

Jiexue sighed. "Okay,"

The next day she gathered the courage to go to Tenzin's office.

"Councilman," She addressed him.

"Chief,"

"In other's experience, the act of cross training has given rise to new bending forms such as the redirection of lightening created by a fire bender studying water benders and-"

"Forgive me for interrupting, Chief Beifong, but I too have mountains of work to do," Tenzin said curtly.

"Do you have any air bending scrolls that I may study to better improve the curriculum at the metal bending police academy?" Lin asked firmly. Fine, if that is how you would like to play this game, then let us play.

"Of course. I will have them delivered to your office by this afternoon," Tenzin replied. "Is that all?"

"For now," She replied. "Councilman." She bowed before leaving his office.

"Chief," he replied plainly. As she walked away with her chin held high, she watched him with her feet as he cowered in frustration and rubbed his head. He was bothered by something. By her.

She would have to create some sort of change for the curriculum, but that obviously would take time. Time enough for…

"Jiexue," Lin called when she got home from work.

"Mom! XiaoFan is air bending now too!"

"What?" She ran to the training room with Jiexue.

The four year old was indeed air bending. Her older siblings were taunting her with pebbles while she blew them away with little air blasts. Lin stomped her foot sending her three earth benders into the opposite wall and scooped up the four year old.

"Great, so you don't have to transcribe these alone!" She said handing her six year old a bag.

"What?!"

"I while I am at work, your new homework will be to make three exact copies of each of these scrolls by hand" Lin told the girl.

"WHAT?!"

"And I expect nothing less than perfection.

"That is not fair!" Why don't they have to do busy work?!" Jiexue demanded.

"They will!" Lin turned to her earthbenders. "You guys will take over cleaning duties in the house while the maids take a vacation on Ember Island."

"What have we done wrong?"

"Nothing! You're all just getting older and it's time we started training a bit more seriously." Lin explained. "A good bender has patience, and discipline. Deal with it!"

She directed her earthbending children's chores and watched her airbending daughters sit at the dinner table copying text and figure drawings. She woke them up with the sun and made everyone meditate for a half hour at first then an hour. She contemplated taking leave from work to be their primary trainer full-time, but then she remembered how much She hated training with her mom part-time and decided against it.

They reluctantly began the work. She assigned them homework and forms and then tested them in the evenings before dinner. They still had downtime after when the children played games or read and she got to catch up on the news. Some things they could clean with their earth bending like getting the dirt out of the floor mats by the doors. Other stuff like the sinks and counters in the kitchen had to be cleaned manually.

They had a week of chores and the air benders, a week of writing and drawing while Lin built a special training room for them under the garden.

She taught them the air bender's arm positioning and posture and constructed a set of metal turning gates so she could spin them without air bending.

"You step through it." She spun them slowly at first and weaved through. All of the children wanted to try the new apparatus. "The Air Nomads were a non-violent civilization that only ever defended themselves with violence in life or death situations. They are the opposite of the earth bender. While an earth bender faces a problem head on, the airbender will dance around it, avoiding it at all costs to minimize risk and injury." Lin said bobbing and weaving with turns and pivots, staying on the balls of her feet, but not bouncing. Just gliding across the ground. Her earth bending children joined in the lessons and found the instruction nonetheless interesting. She taught them forms and tricks and had them practice controlling the element with supervision.


	6. 162AG Fall

he next time Kya and Izumi came, they built a sparring arena.

It was massive and designed to accommodate a battle between all of the elements. A water filled moat surrounded the main sparring platform, and eight giant pots sat equidistant from each other, each filled with a slow burning coal that was lit whenever the arena was in use.

Kya and Izumi taught the children forms from their respective bending styles as well as miscellaneous specialized techniques in the sparring arena until the children were brave enough to face masters of the other elements.

"I haven't even sparred mom yet!" Hungjian exclaimed when Izumi first suggested he begin sparring the masters.

"You're twelve already, you should try." Kya said from a seat on the bottom row of the bleachers, getting a drink. "Trust me, Lin won't actually hurt you, but if you're still afraid, it would be best do it when I'm here and heal whatever she does to you more or less immediately!"

"Okay," Hungjian took a deep breath. "Mom, can we spar?"

"Are you ready?" Lin asked standing, setting Kang down with a couple of toy sky bison and badgermoles.

"I think so," Hungjian said apprehensively.

"Okay. Remember you must feel the earth around you. The earth behind and to the sides. Sometimes, the eyes can be distracting." Lin said as they paced around each other. She threw her son with one slide of the heel. He bounced and rolled into his feet again and tossed a boulder at her. She caught it and instead of returning it, cast it aside and smiled.

"Good recovery. Never back down, my little badgermole!" She said kicking up an even larger boulder. He rightly dodged this one and sent smaller ones he could lift her way. He kicked and punched dozens of them and watched as she weaved between some, blocked others with walls or pillars and disintegrated a few to sand with her deceivingly feeble-looking wrists. He was out of breath.

"You will save a lot of energy if you wait," Lin began to say, lifting another massive rock. "and listen," she finished abandoning the rock creating a curved jagged explosion in the ground knocking Hungjian over from the side while he was distracted by the massive rock that he expected to come at his face. He fell over onto the ground and remained there, perfectly conscious but fatigued.

"I think that's enough for today," Lin smiled walking over to help him up. "No broken bones, right?" She asked.

He shook his head.

"Good," she replied as they made their way over to the bleachers for a drink.

"Mom, What was it like to be trained by Grandma Toph?" Huifan asked.

"Uh... a lot harder than how you guys are trained now."

"How so?"

"I remember a lot of 'suck it up and learn to defend yourself'!" Lin replied. "Followed by an onslaught of boulders, pebbles, and moving walls and then a good few hours getting healed by Aunt Kya's Mom."

"Often times, your mother simply ran away to train with your Grandpa Aang instead," Kya added.

"Grandma Toph wasn't a bad person, she just had really high expectations and wanted your aunt Su and I to be strong and brave. According to her, you can only be brave when you are afraid, so she made us afraid when we trained so we could practice being brave."

"Oh. Will we ever get to meet her some day? Her and Aunt Su?" Huifan asked.

"Maybe. I know Aunt Su is dying to meet you but she's busy building a city!"

"Woah!"

"Can we go visit her some day?"

"When the streets are safer maybe,"

"But that will NEVER happen,"

"Says who?"

"Says you! You said though the names may change, the streets ALWAYS stay the same!"

Lin sighed. "We'll see. Maybe when you're stronger and can keep yourself and each other safer, I'll let you go visit Aunt Su in Zaofu," Lin told them.

The children seemed satisfied with her answer and smiled. After the short break, Aunt Kya choreographed a dance for herself, the Fire Lord, the metalbending Chief of Police, and the earth and air bending children to all perform together in perfect synchronization and harmony, incorporating all of the elements and styles into one form. It was a spectacular sight indeed.


	7. 163AG Winter

A year passed since the two youngest Beifong girls began airbending. Seven-year-old Jiexue was getting braver and braver every day, trying new tricks and forms she saw in the scrolls she transcribed and traced. It was endless. Every day began with meditation with Mom and Xiaoyu or just Xiaoyu when Mom slept in late. It continued with copying a new scroll then practicing forms for an hour, then sparring with Huifan and Hungjian for a few more hours. Xiaoyu never sparred. The five-year-old practiced forms, but refused to spar. Her gentle heart didn't have the capacity for necessary violence, very much like Jinkun. She did like to watch though when they played in the arena or the garden. Other times, she just meditated or went on walks around the border of the estate.

* * *

One day, three old men arrived at the Beifong Estate with black traveling cloaks over their Order of the White Lotus uniform robes.

"We are here to speak with the Lady Lin Beifong." the man in the middle informed the young Captain of the Guard, Peng.

"Did you have an appointment?" Peng asked the old man.

"We are the grand masters of the Order of the White Lotus. We don't need an appointment to see the Lady Beifong."

"She is at work. If the matter is urgent, I suggest you see her at the Police Headquarters,"

"We are perfectly fine waiting here for her to return," the Grand Lotus Member said attempting to pass Peng.

Two guards on the wall dropped a heavy iron grate over the giant dark oak gate to the property where the flying boar was carved and set in gold."If you try to cross the threshold of this property, we have no choice but to apprehend you, White Lotus or not," Peng warned them firmly as several other guards came to his aid.

"When will the Lady Beifong return?" the Grand Lotus demanded.

"That is not information we are allowed to disclose. Now, I must ask you to leave," Peng replied.

The old man looked up and saw two little pairs of green eyes peering over the wall.

They both vanished as soon as they noticed they were noticed.

The old man's eyes narrowed.

"We will be back later," the old man promised before leaving with his two comrades.

* * *

Lin Beifong stood in one of the many parlors of her grand estate, facing the three old men, her greatest enemies. She kept her uniform on specifically for this meeting to remind them just who it was that they were bothering.

"Shall we sit?" the oldest of the three men asked.

"You do not have the authority to invite yourselves to sit in my house, Gan," Lin replied halting the ancient man in his descent. He stood up again and nodded.

"Your children were seen today," the leader of the three said.

"Really, Daizo? By whom, may I ask?" Lin replied setting down her tea cup not wanting to break the fine porcelain if she did become angry.

"By me. They were peering over the wall."

Lin rolled her eyes.

"What does it matter if YOU see them? You already know they exist," Lin replied, her eyes narrowing.

"What if we weren't us but some solicitor, or weary traveler seeking refuge. NO ONE CAN KNOW about them!"

"You don't have to remind me," Lin replied folding her arms looking away.

"It has been four years..." Daizo began to say.

"-without incident, so WHY ARE YOU HERE?" Lin demanded impatiently wanting nothing more than to climb into bed with her babies, read them a story, and go to sleep.

"It has been four years and we were wondering, have Jiexue and Xiaoyu started bending?" Daizo asked.

Lin paused. If she said yes, they would ask which element. If she said no, maybe they would leave her alone.

"Your hesitation confirms the first question. Now for the second which element do they bend?" Daizo asked tilting his head, his eyes not leaving her troubled face.

"Why does it matter?! They're off the island! They're hidden! You have your wish!" Lin yelled at them, her brows furrowing in anger.

"They're airbenders?" Daizo asked.

"No!" Lin lied quickly.

"If they were earthbenders, you wouldn't have hesitated," Daizo explained. "You know, for the chief of police, you are a terrible liar."

"What do you care if they're airbenders now! It doesn't change anything! We can't go back-" Lin looked away again.

"We can take them. Pema and Tenzin could raise them as their own, they will learn proper airbending-" Daizo began to say. Before he could finish his sentence, an earthen hand had encircled his neck, and pinned him to the wall behind the couch.

Lin stood with both fists clenched by her sides, her nostrils flaring. "You will do no such thing. THEY'RE MINE!" .

"Miss Beifong," Gan said calmly.

"CHIEF Beifong to you," Lin snapped at the ancient Grand Lotus.

"Chief Beifong, we are only trying to do what is best for Master Tenzin and the Air Nation. If they don't learn proper technique, they could make disastrous mistakes as they grow powerful. Those mistakes will be noticed, and once word gets out that you have airbending children. people will begin to question the honor and loyalty of the last Airbender to his nation and the Air Acolyte Pema. We cannot have anyone against the Master."

"Honor? HIS HONOR? He was honorably married to ME until you BASTARDS sabotaged everything! What do you think will become of your honor if I speak?"

"What weight do the the words of the rash, temperamental daughter of Toph Beifong carry against us?" the third and thus far silent Grand Lotus asked.

Lin bit her tongue and blinked away tears of anger and frustration. She took a deep breath to reclaim her emotions and felt the steady rhythm of two pairs of little feet coming down one of the many secret passageways that winded through the house. "I suggest you leave now," Lin said releasing the leader of the rock hand around Daizo's throat.

"All we are trying to do is avoid scandal, Miss Beifong," Daizo replied.

"The only scandal is the one that YOU created!" Lin replied. "General Iroh, Master Piandao, King Bumi- they'd all roll over in their graves if they saw what you are doing. Even my blind mother would be able to see just how much you disgrace the uniform you wear. Now GET OUT!" Lin barked stomping the ground, sending a ripple through the earth, summoning her metalbending guards.

Captain Peng and a dozen of his subordinates marched in and herded the three Grand Masters of the White Lotus from the parlor, through the house and out the door.

A little hole opened in the wall of the parlor once they were out of range, and a thirteen year old Hungjian and twelve year old Huifan revealed themselves.

"Mama," they walked over and embraced Lin as she knelt down and cried.

"How much did you hear?" Lin asked stroking their faces, their soft cheeks and smooth, young skin.

"All of it," Hungjian replied.

"Seismic sense amplifies everything," Huifan explained.

Lin held them both in her arms. "You're all so big now, but still so small. I'm sorry you had to hear that."

"Are they going to take Jiexue and Xiaoyu away?" Huifan asked.

"Of course not! I promise, I will never let them near ANY of you."


	8. 163AG Spring

It was an ordinary night when the Captain of the guard sounded the alarm notifying the entire Estate of an attack. Lin leaped out of bed in her black shorts and white tank top and rushed immediately to her children's rooms. The night staff were already there. Hungjian, Huifan, and Jinkun were already out of bed. They followed their mother to Jiexue's room first, meeting Peng and a couple of guards along the way. "Get them to the safe house," Lin ordered Peng, sprinting to her oldest airbending daughter's room.

"Mamaaaa!" the still seven year old little girl screamed as some masked man tried to escape through the window with her.

Without a second thought, Lin leaped out of the broken window after them, cutting her foot in the process and breaking a crater in the ground of the courtyard upon her landing. She rolled onto her feet and raised the wall of the estate up an extra twenty feet. The kidnapper, another earth bender, simply bent a hole in it and continued on as Jiexue screamed.

"No you don't!" Lin yelled feeling out her surroundings for the nearest piece of metal, the most versatile form of earth that she could bend. Lin morphed a garden rake into a free whip, wrapping it around the man's eyes and neck. He fell over, dropping Jiexue in shock. The seven year old pushed him off of her legs and ran back to her mother.

Lin grabbed her tightly and hastily planted a kiss on her forehead. After a quick inspection, she let go to bend a tunnel into the ground that lead to the arena.

"Follow it! Huifan will find you at the other end!" Lin ordered pushing the shaken airbender inside closing up that end and praying that there would not be a cave-in.

Where were the other two? While several metalbending guards fought other assailants, Lin closed her eyes and located the heartbeats of the two remaining missing children.

"Peng, you're back! Get Kang! He's on the south side!" Lin ordered her captain of the guard as she opened a tunnel to go after Xiaoyu.

"Come on, come on!" she said to herself tunnelling as fast as she could to get into the deep maze of tunnels in the mountain side that spanned the entire range as well as the underground of the city. She emerged in the tunnel to find a car leaving.

Lin collapsed the length tunnel ahead and the car screeched to a halt. Lin jumped on the trunk of the car and peeled the roof off with her metalbending only to be met with a blaze of fire. She clenched her chest as she heard her five year old's terrified cries fill the echoing tunnel.

Lin flipped backwards to avoid a second blast of fire and went on the defensive. In the first opening she could find, she did a roundhouse kick, sandwiching the firebender between the wall of the cave and a slab of eaerth she bent out of the opposite wall. She rolled onto her back and kicked up again sending the other firebender into the ceiling. She encased her body in rock armor and sent a rock hand at the man holding her daughter, punching him in the face.

The five-year-old girl jumped out of the car just as two more kidnappers appeared out of two freshly dug tunnels. Xiaoyu ducked to avoid the flurry of rocks. Lin rolled to get nearer her, but was kicked into the ceiling by an earth pillar before she could untuck and root herself again.

"Maaa!" Xiaoyu screamed as she saw her mother fall with a grunt.

Lin rolled onto her knees weakly. She could feel at least two ribs were cracked, and possibly a few vertibrae. She couldn't move immediately. She lifted her head weakly and watched her little girl look up at four large masked men approaching.

"No-" Lin croaked.

"Xiaoyu, come with us and we can give you a real airbending teacher," one of the men said extending a hand to the petrified little girl crouched on the ground.

More masked men appeared, two waterbenders froze Lin's wrists and ankles in ice as if it weren't already clear she had been debilitated.

"I'm fine here, thanks," Xiaoyu replied looking up at them. One lunged at her. She dove over him and onto one knee and one foot and put her fists together making an air sphere around herself like a shield, building up the speed before pushing it out, blowing everyone and everything away from her including her mother.

"Mama, I'm sorry!" Xiaoyu cried, running over to her wounded mother with tears streaming down her amber eyes.

"I'm alright! I'm alright." Lin said weakly forcing a smile onto her face trying to calm her baby. "You can never hurt me." Lin coughed. "Don't worry, I'm fine!" Lin said enveloping the little human in her arms feeling both of their hearts racing.

"Hey!" a masked man called. Lin fought the pain in her battered torso and brought herself to her feet again. She stomped her left foot down and punched her right arm forward with her daughter on her left hip tearing up the ground and sending the man flying back. Then she raised her hand and lifted the ground beneath them, simultaneously breaking the earth above, until they were in the tunnels under the garden. She fell to her knees again.

"Peng! Kwan! Can you help Mama? Please!" Xiaoyu called. The two guards raced over and carried the chief into the arena training room where the children were huddled together with the maids, the live-in healer, the house keeper, the secretary, and at least a dozen guards, one of them holding four year old Kang's hand.

"Mom!" Hungjian ran over.

"You're alright!" Huifan grabbed her hand and squeezed it before letting go again so Peng could lay Lin down before the live-in healer. Lin let out a sigh of relief as all six of her children sat on their knees around her, in her eyesight.

"Min-ji! Find out who was responsible for the attack!" Captain Peng ordered one of the lower ranking guards.

"That will be unnecessary," Lin interjected, catching her breath as the live-in healer sliced open Lin's tank top with an icy blade and set about inspecting her battered body.

"But-" Captain Peng began to protest.

"It was the White Lotus-" Lin informed them, coughing.

"That is a bold accusation. They're powerful. They had the support of the last Avatar and the they have the support of the world Leaders and Master Tenzin, and-"

"They want to take my airbenders, MY CHILDREN and give them to the Air Acolyte Pema and Master Tenzin to raise. They think I can't teach them airbending," Lin wiped tears from her eyes.

"Mama, you are a great teacher. And the best Mama one could ask for!" Jiexue said putting both hands on her mother's right upper arm that was pressed flat into the ground to feel her babies' heart beats slowly subsiding from the excitement of the night.

"I hope I proved them wrong tonight," Xiaoyu whispered with her hands in her lap, remembering the air sphere she made. She remembered seeing her mother blasted out of her icy bonds and into the wall for a second time, and guilt swept over the little five-year-old's entire being. "I'm sorry for hurting you, Mommy,"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Xiaoyi, You can never hurt me!" Lin said reaching over with her left hand to tilt the little girl's gaze from her own hands. "You saved me even when I couldn't save you. Thank you, my little skybison," Lin replied with tears in her eyes.

* * *

"They're Powerful, sir. The five year was able to perform a perfect air sphere!" one of the masked men reported to Daizo.

"You're telling me that a FIVE year old airbender TRAINED BY A METALBENDER, bested you, a supposed master of your element?" Daizo asked fuming.

"Yes," the masked man replied.

"It appears we have underestimated the Chief of Police," Daizo replied pensively.

"Maybe the children are fine where they are. Maybe the chief CAN teach them just fine-" the masked man offered.

"You are not a Grand Lotus. You know NOTHING! If anyone finds out the ex-girlfriend of Master Tenzin, birthed airbenders, and we are exposed for doubting the two youngest girls' potentials, then our credibility will be brought into question, and we could lose _everything_!" Daizo replied. "-and the trust of Master Tenzin."

"Does he know his two youngest daughters are airbenders?"

"No, of course not and DON'T tell him!" Daizo ordered.

The masked man nodded and bowed. "As you wish, Master Daizo."


	9. 163AG Summer

It was the end of the first week of summer.

A seemingly random civilian's body had been found in the mountains that surrounded Republic City with a length of metal wrapped unnaturally around his eyes and his neck, clearly the work of a very skilled and very angry metalbender.

They traced the murdered man's steps to a tiny shack where they found one of Lin's metalbending guards, his wife and five year old son.

"The man had been stalking our property and just last night, he had tried to kidnap our son-"

"Then you should have called the police, and stayed out of the way," Saikhan replied

"I did call the police. I am employed by the chief Beifong and she came and even stayed with us for a few nights, to keep us safe. She pursued the man and freed our child but he still got away. Neither of us realized that what she had done would result in his death.

"Chief Beifong cares that much about you?" Saikhan asked.

"Yes, Deputy."

"Tell me, in what capacity are you employed by the Chief?"

The guard gulped. "I bring her groceries to her apartment in the city every day and do other miscellaneous chores since she is so busy with work."

"And why didn't you or the chief report the attempted kidnapping sooner?" Saikhan asked.

"She told me she would file the report and then returned home. I trusted her," the guard said holding his five year old son tightly.

"Hmph," Saikhan grumbled.

* * *

Kya and Izumi both came within a day of the attempted kidnapping and helped them come up with the cover story involving one of the guards and his family They helped remove all the blood in the courtyard of the Beifong Estate and move the body of the one dead without a trace to the secrete place. Izumi stayed with the children at the Estate while Kya went with Lin to the apartment in the city after they built the makeshift house for the guard.

Kya brought a well-known, easy to access poison and its antidote and gave a non-lethal dose to Lin while she prepared the paperwork and hastily scribbled partial information on the cover story before crawling into bed that Kya had saturated with water and salts to make fake sweat and. As the poison began to take affect, Lin added mucus and a little blood to the soggy and salty mess of the bed. Kya froze and thawed the little food in the fridge to make it look like it had spoiled in the last few days and then ducked out and hid at a pub a few blocks away as the police arrived to investigate the dwelling they had on record for their Esteemed Chief of Police.

"Poison," Lin croaked from her bed after Saikhan and the other deputies forced entry. She appeared bedridden with a fever. "I started the report, it is in the study, you can take it if you want, but it's not finished yet. Sorry I didn't call before collapsing here," Lin told Saikhan in barely a whisper.

"Have you been to a healer?" Saikhan asked.

"I can barely move, and I live alone. Who would have taken me?" Lin replied straight faced.

"Let us bring you there,"

"Alright,"

At the hospital, they administered the antidote, but the healers still ordered the chief to take at least a week to recover from the lack of sleep and possible fever (that was also Kya's doing).

* * *

"Lin took a WEEK off?" Tenzin asked the deputy chief, Saikhan that Friday after he delivered the weekly report to the council in the Chief's stead.

"Apparently she fell ill with a fever," Saikhan explained.

"She's never been sick in her life!" Tenzin exclaimed.

"Well, things change," Saikhan replied.

"Will you tell me when she returns from leave?"

"Yeah, sure-" Saikhan replied lazily.

"I'm serious, Saikhan. I'm going to call every day until you tell me she has returned!" Tenzin insisted.

"Alright! Alright," Saikhan yelled walking away as Tenzin sighed.

* * *

Huifan followed Lin around constantly, trying to help with the chores, the paperwork, dusting and managing the house staff. Xiaoyu worked tirelessly on her air sphere and funnel formation and control. Jiexue worked on her strength and direction and trained with Izumi in sparring and forms. Hungjian and Jinkun both worked on weight lifting and endurance, and Kya joined them for morning meditation then told them stories of her travels in the evenings to get their minds off of the recent attack on the Estate and attempted kidnapping. Despite all of their efforts to get the children to forget, they still insisted on sleeping with Lin. She didn't complain. Despite the constant kicking of six little feet against her arms, legs, ribs, and face, she found comfort in feeling their little heartbeats. Each of them were within reach where she could check that they were all still breathing. All still together, in one place, in one piece. It was beautiful.

"But YOU need to sleep, and you need to go back to work eventually, if you want to try to avoid suspicion!" Kya said sitting with Lin on the wall of the estate looking down at the city while Izumi trained the children in the arena under the garden.

"I know, but it is just so soon, and I don't want the White Lotus to try to pull anything while I am away,"

"Lin you have to tell Tenzin!"

"He's not going to believe me. Beside's he's also watched like a vulture watches a dying coyotecrawler in the Si Wong Desert. And I can hardly speak to him at work since it is swarming with gossiping bumblefleas. Tenzin has no control of the White Lotus. If he did, he would have stopped them from separating us in the first place," Lin whispered hugging her knees against her chest.

* * *

As was expected, there was a mountain of work when Lin returned to the Headquarters Police Station. She shifted through the papers blindly, her mind wandering back to her mountain home where Kya promised to entertain her children until her return. She had Peng and a few other guards and loyalists launching an investigation into Daizo and the other Grand Lotus members, hoping to find out any background on the young hitmen they hired to carry out the kidnapping. The poor lad who lost his life at Lin's hand was the son of a simple grocer who now spoke to everyone who would listen about how much he hated the metalbending police. Since the attack was at night, she hadn't gotten a clear view of any of her faces, and since over a week had passed, she'd probably forgotten some critical details. The former distractions weren't working anymore. All of the children, even Kang, never wanted their mother to leave.

"Lin," a sickeningly familiar voice said across the table.

Her heart skipped a beat, startled. Spirits! Why isn't even my seismic sense working? Lin sighed in frustration and stood up, diverting her attention from her desk. "What do you need, Tenzin? I am a little busy," she said impatiently glancing down at the piles of paper that she was no where close to finishing.

"I wanted to know that you're okay," The Air Nomad councilman said standing before her.

"You can find that out from the papers, can't you? You didn't need to come here," she said glancing down at a family photograph of them in an open drawer of her desk.

"Lin," he sighed stepping closer to her desk, to her. "You were poisoned!"

_By your own sister, mind that. We had it under control! Now leave me alone!_

"You can tell me the truth!" Tenzin pleaded quietly knowing full well that the papers never had the full story.

Lin kept her gaze down, thinking.

"There is nothing left to say. Now, get out!" Lin growled.

"Lin, you've taken a week of leave and still look like you haven't slept in days!" Tenzin continued bereft with her noncompliance.

_Maybe because I've had six pairs of feet kicking me all night every night for the past week, no thanks to you!_

"Are you sure they got all of the poison out of your body?" Tenzin asked.

"What does it matter? I'm here now, so stop worrying!" Lin yelled at him, returning her gaze to the paperwork. "It's not your place to worry about me, anymore." she added quietly.

Tenzin turned away from her. Lin let out a sigh of relief. Good he's leaving.

Tenzin reached instead for the handle of the metal door and slid it shut soundproofing the room, startling her.

"Are the children okay?" He demanded.

"You KNOW we're not supposed to talk about this, ESPECIALLY in public! Are you insane?!" Lin yell/whispered.

"Lin, you can't pretend it didn't happen-,"

"I am not pretending anything. I'm trying to do what you failed to do! I'm trying to protect them! If you cared about their safety, you will STOP asking about them. The White Lotus,"

"Is nothing but a cult now— Lin, I've known you for as long as I remember. I was there when you were born. You've NEVER been sick. Just- tell me that they're okay! They're healthy? Growing? Eating?"

"If I tell you, will you leave, and NEVER mention them again?" Lin asked.

Tenzin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes,"

"They're fine!" Lin said throwing the metal door open again with her bending. "Now get out before I have the deputy leave you for a night in a holding cell!" Lin yelled at the Councilman shoving him out the door with a snap of her cable before slamming it shut again.

The detectives seated at desks in the open area out side the Chief's office all looked up at the councilman with their mouths gaping open. Tenzin turned to the Deputy Chief Saikhan who casually shrugged.

"You wanted to know when she came back," he reminded the Airbending Master bluntly. Tenzin sighed and left the premises returning to City Hall disappointed.

* * *

Later that night, Kya came by Air Temple Island.

"What a pleasant surprise!" Pema exclaimed welcoming her sister-in-law into the building she the latter once called her own home.

"Tenzin! Kya's here!" Pema called juggling one-year-old Ikki on her hip while a three-year-old Jinora sat on the floor with a doll and a small blanket.

"Kya?"

"Yes Kya! Your sister!"

"Right! That Kya!" Tenzin slammed his book against his forehead and set it down with a sigh.

"Still paying more attention to your books than your own kids?" Kya asked.

"Still? I never- I'm not— look, I have had a lot on my mind lately and—"

"I was just joking alright?! Jeez! Why do you always have to be so sensitive, little brother?" Kya said massaging his shoulders as he rubbed his head. "Come on, walk with me."

"So where have you been? Carelessly gallivanting all over the world?"

"Not slightly. More recently, I've been helping a friend," Kya replied.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Apparently there's this guy that's been giving her some problems and, I was hoping to get a chance to rough him up a little and give him a reminder of what happens when my kin is reckoned with.

"And he lives on this island?" Tenzin asked.

"Yes,"

"Is it me?"

"What do you think?"

"If it was, I'd be frozen in an ice berg at the bottom of the ocean because you value your friends than your own family?"

"Close! The friend IS family, Tenzin, therefore I value you both equally." Kya said hugging her brother as they walked. "I found out from Lin's Captain of the Guard, Peng, that the guy who orchestrated the attempted kidnapping is called Daizo and apparently he's a Lotus Member stationed on this island."

"Daizo?" Tenzin furrowed his brows. " But he's a Grand Lotus now."

"Well, when I'm through with him, he'll be a ground up Lotus that I will steep into my tea tomorrow morning,"

"What did he do? I thought the guy that was found dead on the mountain side-"

"He was a hired hitman, the son of a grocer, no more. It was Daizo-"

"Why would Daizo want that errand boy's son?"

"They weren't after the errand boy's son," Kya whispered.

"They were after Lin's daughters. Your daughters."

"But why?" Tenzin asked.

 _Because he fucked-up? Because your children are airbenders? Because he doesnt want anyone to find out just how much of an impatient douche he was for not waiting for the girls to grow up? Because he doesn't have faith in the Chief of Police's ability to raise her own children?_ "Because he's a sadist that enjoys seeing your favorite little stone-hearted rock crying," Kya deadpanned.

Tenzin felt his whole body become overcome by rage and a sudden urge to protect Lin— and their babies. "You're not telling me everything, Kya,"

"What else is there to tell?" Kya replied stubbornly. "Just because you two are history doesn't mean we have to be. I'm just here to avenge MY friend," Kya said. "Now if you excuse me, there's an old man I need to bury."

Tenzin went immediately to Daizo.

"My sister is under the impression you may have been involved in the attempted kidnapping of the errand boy's son," Tenzin told the grand lotus. The two went off on a walk to discuss the matters leaving Kya to search his office for evidence without Tenzin even realizing what was happening.


	10. 164AG Summer

Izumi no longer held back against the two oldest earth benders, she didn't need to warm them up with red fire before jumping straight into the ring with blazing blue. Huifan bent an earth wedge to divert the blaze, and felt the ground crack beneath the fire jetting from the Fire Lord's feet as she glided across the floor around the earth tent. Huifan dove to the other side of her earth tent and kicked two boulders onto curved paths through the air one hitting the fire lord in the side, but the other missing, blasted away by fire. The Fire Lord landed on the ground. Huifan tried to trap her feet, but she broke it with nothing but heat. The Fire Lord cartwheeled towards the thirteen year old girl generating a ring of fire.

Huifan bent all of the metal off her arms into a staff and spun it with her metalbending like an airbender would use a staff and rolled out from under the ring of blue fire, letting the red hot, nearly molten metal clatter to the ground. She did a sweep kick knocking the Fire Lord off of her feet but the Fire Lord flipped over, landing in a perfect planche position then kicked up into a windmill generating more fire. Huifan rose a protective wall but the blast broke the wall from its earthen base and sent both girl and wall flying towards the moat. Huifan thought fast. She broke a boulder into dirt and threw it into the moat making herself a mud slushy for versatility. She turned to the Fire Lord walking towards her and bent down on one knee and bent a wheel of mud around her body looking very much like her waterbending aunt, and hosed the Fire Lord with it. The Fire Lord covered her face and was thrown tumbling back across the arena."

"Okay, you win!" Izumi said putting her hands up in surrender. "A Fire Lord surrenders to the Earth Kingdom girl with honor," Izumi said walking over in mud saturated robes. "Your resourcefulness is improving. Good use of the waterbending technique, Huifan. I am sure it will prove most useful in your travels!"

"If we ever can travel," Huifan replied sadly, beckoning her metal staff towards her to dunk in the water moat to ensure it had cooled before bending it back into strips to stack onto her arms again.

Izumi placed a hand on the girl's shoulder sympathetically. "You will. I'll talk to your mother," Izumi promised the thirteen-year-old. Huifan smiled. "After today's training."

* * *

Jiexue and Xiaoyu were standing on their hands while Lin straightened their legs and bodies.

"Why do we have to learn tumbling?" Jiexue asked miserably as the blood rushed to her head.

"You need the flexibility and total control of your body to be able to bend with the wind around you," Lin explained.

"But it hurts," Xiaoyu said lowering into a planche, then lifting up again into a hand stand again with a large arch span, bending her back until her legs were straight and parallel with the ground.

"Steady, and rest, little one," Lin said slowly guiding the girl back to the handstand and planche again before letting her sit down on her little round bottom.

Jiexue copied, without the need of assistance, doing five repetitions before sitting beside her sister, both of them sweaty and tired. Lin looked down at them and softened slightly. She remembered a lot of Tenzin's early days spent meditating first then training basic forms when he was probably six years old. Jiexue was eight and needed to be taking training seriously, and Xiaoyu, since throwing Lin into a wall with a messy air sphere, insisted upon learning everything Jiexue had to learn. She was young but pushed so hard to keep up.

Lin raised four earthen pillars with notches for their ankles and let the girls stretch in the over splits for a minute.

Meanwhile, Lin metalbent on a new harness she developed so that she could extend cables through her sleeves and legs. She could use the cables to mimic airbending, and give the girls a visual of where their currents should be flowing. She fitted the gauntets to her arms and guards to her legs, and slapped the two spools onto her back and threaded them through.

"Next, you guys will actually get to start bending," Lin told the girls as they sat with their legs in an over split above their hips, and their elbows resting on the ground.

"You will enter with a butterfly kick then sweep down into a single flare, kick up to one hand, push into a single horizontal twist, land on one leg and push-" Lin said landing on her left leg, looking up at the ceiling with her torso, arm and leg creating a horizontal line with her head looking up at the ceiling, as a cable shot out of her arm and leg in either direction.

"Woah!" the girls watched their mother in awe.

Jiexue got the butterfly kick and flare easy enough but had difficulty with the twist, landing short and falling on her butt or arms every time.

Xiaoyu was fine with the kick then used airbending to get extra lift on her entry into the single horizontal twist giving her enough time to get one leg directly under her and blast air from her hand and foot.

"Not fair! You're younger!" Jiexue yelled blasting her little sister into the wall of the air arena.

"Woah!" Lin said ensnaring both of the eight year old's wrists as she would a prisoner's during an arrest. "Everyone is different Jiexue, Xiaoyu may have gotten this ONE move before you, but you are still physically stronger and can do ten handstand to planches in a row while Xiaoyu can only do two!"

"But strength isn't needed for airbending! You can have the air do all of the work for you!"

Lin yanked the eight year old over to her and grabbed her shoulders firmly. "Strength is needed in ALL bending styles! Not just earth or fire. It takes extreme strength to have complete control in anything."

Jiexue frowned. "I wish I was born an earthbender," Jiexue muttered yanking her arm out of her mother's hand going to try the new move again.

Six year old Xiaoyu wandered over to her mother rubbing her arm.

"Are you okay, Little one?"

Xiaoyu nodded and sat for a short two minute break and drank some water before continuing.

Lin sighed and sat down watching her little girls practice their airbending.

* * *

Kya was playing hide and go seek with Kang when the older children, Izumi, and Lin emerged from the underground training rooms for dinner. Mr. Doan, the estate's chef prepared the best stir fried vegetables with tofu and imitation crab for the airbenders, and the same vegetable stirfry with stewed pork belly and seared beef for everyone else. Jiexue was still jealous of Xiaoyu. Xiaoyu felt like she was at fault and in the wrong no matter what Lin said. Huifan was tired, and bitter about something which Lin really didn't feel like finding out. Hungjian was talking to Izumi about one of his victories over a couple of the guards before she came and Jinkun was fleshing out some fine details of a sculpture he was working on. Lin bent off her metal gauntlets and spools of cable discarding them in a heap in the corner of the dining room wearily sitting down at the head of the table wearing her white tank top and black pants, running her fingers through her hair, exhausted. Who knew training kids would be so difficult.

When Hungjian and Huifan were Jiexue's age, they learned simply by watching and copying Lin's motions. They didn't need so much explained and demonstrated. They were fearless on their little island in the bay. They constantly experimented and invented new moves that they couldn't wait to show their mother when she returned home at the end of the day.

But now? Jiexue and Xiaoyu were to afraid to airbend without their mother's supervision. They were too afraid of hurting each other too badly. They refused to spar when Aunt Kya left and wouldn't be there to heal them. They had no one to give them advice or validation. Only their mother, a metalbender.

Lin, Kya, and Izumi spent the evening after dinner trying to figure out how to replicate Avatar Aang's favorite move, one that he invented, the air scooter.

"Do you think they have enough control for the air scooter?" Kya asked Lin.

"I don't know," Lin sighed smashing her earthen sphere with her heel in a drop kick.

"They are still really young," Izumi reminded Lin with a sigh.

"I know, but- I need to keep them interested with new techniques. I keep hoping that they can develop the discipline to practice on their own when I am at work. Even with some fifty skills to practice, Jiexue is fading. She thinks she can muscle her way through everything like an earthbender. She doesn't even try to bend air. She has no patience. Xiaoyu has begun to incorporate her airbending into every kick, every jump, every twist, even the most subtle of motions are aided by little gusts of wind that carry her across the floor. She's a natural. But Jiexue. She- she's impatient and easily angered. She doesn't understand patience or control. Just a year ago, she listened to me so willingly and now I feel like we just butt heads every day!" Lin subconsciously bent a seat out of the ground and sat down with a sigh, running her fingers through her wavy still-black hair.

"Maybe it is just a phase," Kya said sitting beside her on ice.

"Or maybe they just need a change of scenery," Izumi suggested.

"But we can't leave, the White Lotus and Daizo and his cronies-"

"-have no authority outside of Republic City. I could take them to Ember Island for a week, maybe. Get them out of this prison. Besides. How can an airbender practice the element of freedom if they can only bend surrounded by six stone walls, underground, in secret?" Izumi asked.

"I can't possibly burden you with six children for a week!"

"It isn't a burden! I am offering. Ursa and Huifan are about the same age anyways. Maybe they could be friends and penpals or something. At least consider it, Linny. And if you really think I can't handle it, keep Kang or something. I'm sure the boy get's lonely while you're training his siblings and we're not here," Izumi suggested.

"I guess you're right," Lin sighed.

"I'm always right!" Izumi replied with a smirk patting the earth bender on the shoulder.

Lin sighed and looked down at the pile of rubble where moments before she had an earth sphere. She then glanced over at Kya's thawing ball of ice, and the scorched earth where Izumi had tried to replicate Aang's air scooter with fire, unsuccessfully. Finally, she turned and looked back at her mansion where her six children slept soundly in their own rooms. It only took a year and a week to get them out of her bed after the traumatic attempted kidnapping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The handstand (planche and handstand with large arch span) are from gymnastics and the purpose of making the airbending kiddos practice TOTAL control of their bodies and flexibility so they can move with precision and fluidity with the wind.
> 
> The thing Lin teaches them after stretching with the butterfly kick (same in martial arts and gymnastics) and the flare (breakdancing because Lin is OP like that) is the entry she uses to do the thing we see Aang do in the opening sequence of LOK and Tenzin do in his fight with Zaheer (just in case I am shit at describing athletic moves or if you don't know the names of some things (i had to google difference between flare and windmill to see which may be easier to get into a handstand and horizontal twist.
> 
> And I think I may have made just found the origins of how Lin created designed the "new police uniform". She needed some how to make airbending visual. Because you can't really "see" air. Only feel it. But young airbenders with no one to blow wind in their faces need another way to "see" the paths they're supposed to follow. So Lin makes the cables an extension of her limbs.
> 
> (And admit it. That handstand spinning thing she did on the roof of the Pro-bending Stadium looked AWFULLY airbender-like with the circular motions and the cables twirling around her like a ribbon.)


	11. 164AG Fall

After Kya couldn't find anything incriminating in Daizo's office on Air Temple Island and Daizo found out from Tenzin that Kya still visited Lin and the children, Daizo was furious. He stormed into the Police Headquarters and threatened to convince the council the murder of his hitman was done in cold blood and that Lin and the "errand boy" were co-conspirators. He would have her exiled from the city and her children made motherless, passed off as orphans and adopted by Pema and Tenzin. Lin scoured the law code but could do nothing to incriminate him since he had a perfectly clean record whereas she had killed dozens in her line of duty. Some may even falsely believe that she enjoyed it.

Lin used her Earth Kingdom status to get citizenship for her guard and his family in case Daizo did decide to pursue the framing. She had a safe house established for them and ready the instant they may need to flee the United Republic and promised them sufficient funds to live and adjust to their new home across the border.

To increase security around the mountain estate, Lin asked her grandfather to expand the property which he willingly did with the expectation that she would eventually inherit his company and would need all of the land and security requested to stay safe. She cited her growing reputation among the triads as her primary concern. As a result, Lao bought the surrounding four thousand acres around the Beifong Estate where they lived and quintupled the guard stationed on the property. Nobody was allowed on the entire mountain where they lived.

* * *

The winds were kicking up as fall set in over the bay. It was even colder on the mountain top when Lin and Kang went to meditate. While Lin had to wear the bearmink fur coat she had just to be able to last the full hour designated to the activity, five year old Kang refused to wear even a sweater.

"It just doesn't feel cold to me," the boy insisted. Lin frowned, but brought an extra coat for him anyways before they began their trek up the mountain. It had been only a day since the other children left for their Ember Island adventure with Aunt Izumi.

* * *

"And then then Shu was killed by Oma's brother so she destroyed both armies and made a new city where the survivors of both villages would live happily ever after and she called it Omashu!" Kang said to his mother gleefully as they began their descent after meditation.

"I'm not sure that's how the story goes, Kang," Lin replied walking beside her youngest baby. She couldn't believe what her baby boy had become. He was so big now! So full of energy and enthusiasm and he wasn't cold!

"It's BASED on the legend. It's not the actual legend! Gosh! You _**never**_ like my stories," Kang replied with exasperation.

"I do! I just didn't know if this one was supposed to be true or not. You didn't specify when you began speaking, and as your parent, I also have to make sure you know the difference between fact and fantasy and clarify when things are unclear," Lin replied covering her face with embarrassment.

Kang sighed. "It's so boring without everyone else here."

"Really? I thought you might get lonely while I train your siblings."

"But that's interesting! And I like watching you guys fight!"

"Fighting isn't a good thing! It is just a necessity. Look, I want you to be happy, but they also needed some time away. So I am going to ask you, what would make our time together less boring?" Lin asked.

"Could we race back down to the house?" Kang asked.

"Are you sure you want to do that? You know you won't get a head start."

"I don't think I'll need one!" Kang said cracking his knuckles, stretching his shoulders by swinging his bare arms in a circle through the cool fall air.

No! Lin realized it the second before it happened. Her five year old sprinted, covering over fifty feet in six steps before turning up a ball of air right beneath himself creating an air scooter, laughing with the same glee his father had when he was a child, when he was still happy.

"Kang! Be careful! Watch out for the trees!" Lin said racing after him on a slab of earth, sliding down the mountain as if it were a board on tightly packed snow covered in a thin layer of ice.

He only laughed and went faster. Lin shot a strip of metal that she wore on her wrist towards the boy but missed.

"Kang! The trees end soon! You could be seen!" Lin yelled, unable to make up the distance between, but not losing any.

"Don't worry Mama, I got th-" Kang yelled turning back. His foot hit a rock and he flew through the air and out of the forest at the bottom of the hill, and over the fence that lined their property, falling towards asphalt.

"No!" Lin reached her hand out and reduced the entire street to a soft muddy sand pit turning up the wet ground underneath the paved road.

Screaming, Kang fell into it with a splash. She rode her rock sled right through the metal fence bending it open with ease, dropping to her knees beside the boy.

"Are you alright?!" she demanded, cupping his face.

"Ma! I'm fine! I could have stopped it myself! I've been practicing-"

"But- You-You can't be!" Lin said looking at him with fear on her face.

"But- I thought you'd be proud. I thought-. I thought this was a good thing!"

"It is! Just- It is NOT something you should keep from me!" Lin scolded.

"Lin?" a third voice asked. Lin looked up and saw her probably least favorite person in the world looking down at her and Kang.

"Mama, is he-"

"SH!"

"Lin, did he just call you-" Tenzin began to ask before Lin cut him off.

"Why are you here, Tenzin?" Lin asked stepping in front of him.

"I was just about to ask you the same thing? And why all the mud-"

"That's beside the point! I asked you a question!" Lin raised her voice. Kang stepped behind her, clinging onto her leg, not taking his eyes off of the arrow on the bald man's forehead.

"I was delivering some papers to a fellow Councilman who lives nearby when I saw the new fence up. This land used to be a protected forest!"

"Well not since Republic City zoned it for residential buildings!" Lin replied. "Now if you will excuse me, I have to go wash somebody!" Lin growled frowning down at Kang who shrunk back a little.

"But Lin!"

"I'll return the road to its previous state in the morning," Lin said turning to head towards the fence with the hole in it, holding firmly onto Kang's hand.

"Lin, wait!" Tenzin yelled grabbing her other arm just below the elbow.

"Let GO of me!" Lin screamed yanking her hand out of his grasp, releasing Kang, and punching Tenzin in the face accidentally, subconsciously bending a pillar of earth at him, pushing him ten feet in the air and twenty feet away. She panicked.

"Lin!" He garbled clutching a bloody and broken nose.

In a panic, Lin grabbed Kang in one swift motion, jumped onto her rock slab and slid back up the mountain, closing the hole in the fence as she passed through.

If Daizo found out about Kang, and Kang being an airbender, if ANYONE found out, they'd be ruined.

* * *

"You hurt him!" Kang yelled.

"He grabbed my arm!"

"You grab my arm!"

"You're my son! I can do that!"

"But I'm his son too, aren't I?"

Lin turned away. "Yes, you are."

"I saw the way he looked at you; he still cares about you-"

"But we cannot be. The White Lotus needed him to have airbenders and I didn't have any so we had to leave for him to find someone new who could give him what the world needed."

"But you DID give him airbenders! Three!"

"Well the White Lotus didn't know that when they separated us. And we all found out after it was too late."

"I want to meet him!"

"Well we don't all get everything we want in life, DEAL WITH IT!" Lin yelled back.

Kang stepped back from her, his lip quivering. Lin froze, her features softened. She crouched down in their living room and reached out for him.

"Kang, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lashed out! I want to see him too! I want to tell him about you. I DO! I want us to live together, and be happy but it has been too long. He has another family. It would be too risky, too dangerous if we expose ourselves now. We will never be able to live like this again-"

"I don't want to live like this! I hate the isolation! It gets SOOOO lonely, ESPECIALLY with everyone gone-" Kang sniffled.

"But Kang, would you rather be followed by reporters? Stalked by criminals? You're young, and I am the Chief of Police. The triads WILL target you for ransom. Here we are safe. Here we are free."

"Says Joo Dee in the all the books about Grandfather's adventures in Ba Sing Se," Kang replied turning away from her, running to her room.

Lin stood up and wiped her eyes. Give him time.


	12. 164AG Fall: Ember Island Part I

"I can't wait until we're strong enough to show the world our abilities!" nine-year-old Jiexue exclaimed collapsing on her bunk on a Royal Fire Nation Battle Ship after training.

"I love being able to fly!" her little sister, seven-year-old Xiaoyu added referring to the air funnel she made earlier on the deck of the ship with assistance from the Fire Lord Izumi.

"I am going to write in the diary Aunt Kya gave me." Jiexue said pulling the book from underneath her mattress.

"Hey! Aunt Kya didn't give ME a diary!"

"That is because you don't even know how to write yet!"

"Well you can teach me!" Xiaoyu replied reaching for the book and pen.

"Get off my bed!" Jiexue yelled blasting her little sister into the opposite wall with a gust of air.

"WHAT is going on here?!" a voice just as commanding as their own mother's barked from the doorway.

"Hi Aunt Zumi! We were just-" Jiexue stuttered sitting up on her bunk with her book in her lap.

"Never mind. Don't even bother making up excuses. I could hear you two from down the hall. I have news for you two." Izumi began. "Your mother will be arriving soon."

"To take us back?" Jiexue asked with a disappointed sigh.

"But we haven't even reached Fire Nation waters yet!" Xiaoyu cried.

"No! She's not coming to take you back. She's decided to let Kang join us," Izumi said enthusiastically. Both girls gasped, their faces lighting up. "And there's more news! Kang is an airbender now!"

Both girls eyes went wide, and jaws dropped to the floor.

"No way!" Jiexue breathed.

"Does this mean we get to teach Kang now?"

"Yes, but under one condition. You must help us teach him patience and restraint. You may only teach him airbending in the courtyard of my house or down on the private beach and make sure he understands the consequences that will result if anyone sees."

"And those are?"

"If the airbending is barely noticeable, but noticeable, you will have to go back to the estate, immediately. If it reaches the island news, the White Lotus may take you away from us, permanently. Understood?"

Both girls nodded. "Yes, Aunt Zumi."

"Good. I'll see you both on the deck in precisely fifteen minutes." Izumi said to the two girls before backing out of their room.

Jiexue and Xiaoyu glanced at each other with ecstatic grins on their face. "Come here!" the elder of the two said opening an arm to her little sister. "I'll show you what I am writing, BUT ONLY THIS ONE TIME!" Jiexue said inviting her sister to join her on the bunk.

_Dear Diary,_

_Everything is working out. Our Mom, The Chief Of the metalbending Police has been teaching us airbending and now WE get to teach our baby brother Kang. And more good news. We get to leave the house. We are currently aboard a Fire Nation BATTLESHIP en route to Ember Island with Fire Lord Izumi for FIVE WHOLE DAYS! Would you believe it?! Our first ever adventure beyond the walls of the estate will be a full vacation with beach parties and Kuai Ball. Aunt Zumi even promised to take us to see the 'Boy in the Iceberg' at the island playhouse! She said it is a humiliatingly hilarious comedy about how our grandparents and her father ended the hundred year war! That's all for now. Mother will be here soon, so we have to go! Bye!_

* * *

There was a grumble and a gust of wind as a sky bison landed on the deck of the battle ship.

"Woah!" Jiexue and Xiaoyu gasped stepping back from the two-ton beast.

"Did you steal him, Lin?" Izumi asked with a smirk.

"Oogi was always mine. The daft beast shoved his furry head into my belly when I was barely five years old even though I had no apple- nothing to offer him. He only accepted Tenzin after I forced him between us," Lin replied patting Oogi on the head after sliding off while Kang drifted through the air.

"Maybe he was blessing your womb to have air babies!" Huifan snickered.

"Haha!" Lin replied frowning at her fourteen year old daughter.

"Kang!" Jiexue and Xiaoyu ran up to hug their little brother, the baby of the family.

"Show is what you can do!" Jiexue ordered.

"Okay!" Kang said excitedly.

"Children, be careful!" Lin yelled Turing around as Kang jumped on an air scooter and rode it around his two airbending sisters.

"So that is what Aunt Zumi and Kya were trying to help Mom with that one night!" Jiexue realized.

She and Xiaoyu made an air scooter for the first time and followed him, laughing until Kang ran into the wall of the deck of the battle ship and flew overboard.

"Kang!" Lin ran over to the edge and shot a cable out wrapping it around his waist and bringing him up to the deck before he hit the water and smashed against the hull of the battle ship.

"What did I say about being careful?!" Lin scolded.

"Sorry, Mom," Kang sighed, bowing his head apologetically.

Lin rubbed her head. "I am so sorry to burden you Izumi.

"They're not a burden. Go back to Republic City and REST! You're on my ship now, and therefore under MY jurisdiction, which means you must follow MY orders!" Izumi said putting a hand on Lin's shoulders.

"Yes, your majesty," Lin replied curtsying like a proper lady before walking over to Oogi. She latched a cable around his horn and pulled herself onto his head.

"Kang, listen to your sisters. The rest of you, listen to Aunt Zumi and behave, please!

"Yes Mom!" the children chorused waving.

"I will see you in five days! Be safe! Oogi, yip yip!" Lin said cracking the reins. The sky bison roared and took off flying in the opposite direction of the Fire Nation battle ship back to Republic City.

* * *

Once they were close, Izumi helped all six of the children dress in casual upper-class Fire Nation clothes. She let the girls keep their hair the same, but put the boys' hair up in Fire Nation style too knots and gave them red hair ribbons and golden flame hair pieces. They looked good in red. Xiaoyu especially. Though her face, build and hair looked identical to her mother at that age, her eyes were a glowing amber color much like many Fire Nation. She must have inherited that from her maternal grandfather, Izumi thought to herself as the youngest girl looked overboard at the waves.

"Okay Everyone!" Izumi called clapping her hands. "Pop quiz! If anyone asks, your mother and father are governors of…."

"Ta Rin Island!" the children chorused excitedly.

"Your last name is..."

"La!"

"Who are you staying with on this island?"

"Aunt Zuzu!" the children answered.

"Good. Now that we are all aware of our cover-stories, I think we're ready, don't you?"

"Yes!"

They climbed onto a smaller vessel and abandoned the battle ship about twenty kilometers off the shores of Ember Island as to not disturb the peaceful beaches and hog the small docks. When they reached the island, a man 31 years of age and his little sister, 15 years of age stood waiting for them on the docks.

"Mother," the two both greeted Fire Lord Izumi.

Kang's jaw dropped and Jiexue pinched him in the gut.

"Prince Iroh, Princess Ursa," HungJian bowed to the two royals politely, winking at the Fire Nation lady.

"My brother's an idiot! I would recommend you ignore him," Huifan said shoving her brother right off the docks and into the water.

Jinkun's eyes widened, Xiaoyu gasped, Kang and Jiexue burst out laughing. For a moment, all three Fire Nation royals present stood still, stunned, until they too started laughing.

"Dammit, Huifan!" Hungjian yelled clamoring onto the wooden deck again.

"Don't worry, mine is too!" Ursa said with a smile at Huifan glancing at Iroh.

"HEY! I'm older than you." Iroh yelled at her.

"But you don't always act like it!" Ursa shout back riding to her tip toes.

"Well sometimes I do!" Iroh replied.

"SOMETIMES!"

"Enough you two!" Izumi yelled separating them and standing between. "I'd like you to meet Hungjian, Huifan, Jinkun, Jiexue, Xiaoyu, and Kang. They're Aunt Lin's children."

"I can tell. This one looks like the spitting image of Katara!" Iroh exclaimed pointing at Huifan.

"Really?!" Huifan asked clasping her hands together with excitement.

"Wait! YOU've met OUR Gran Gran?" Jiexue asked running over inquisitively and somewhat suspiciously poking him in the chest.

"Yes! After Avatar Aang's death, Master Katara came to spend some of her grieving period with our grandfather before permanently settling in the Southern Water Tribe," Iroh replied.

"You remember that?" Ursa asked skeptically.

Iroh frowned. "I was five when she came and ten by the time she left. OF COURSE I REMEMBER!"

"Oh! Right! I forgot you're older than me, because you know, you don't act like it-" Ursa said with a smug grin on her face.

"Ugh!"

"Ursa, please stop patronizing your brother," Izumi begged.

"But Mother, it's soooooo fun. You would understand if you had siblings,"

Izumi shot her a death glare and the girl silenced herself.

"But if Gran Gran already had white hair by the time Uncle Aang died, how did you know what she looked like when she was fourteen. It is not like they had cameras back then!"

"Grandfather had portraits done of Master Katara throughout the years,"

"Throughout the years?" Xiaoyu turned to Kang who shrugged.

"But aren't portraits expensive?" Jiexue asked.

"Yeah! Was she like his concubine or something?" Huifan asked.

"ENOUGH! Huifan, we do not speak that way about family members or royalty! Now, that we're here on your first adventure beyond the walls of the Estate, why don't we focus not on the past but the present, shall we? What would you children like to do first? Iroh and Ursa are at your service since you are our guests," Izumi asked.

The children all looked at each other.

"Well since Hungjian's already wet, there's only one thing we can do," Huifan began.

"BEACH PARTY!"


	13. 164AG Fall: Ember Island Part II

Lin was back at the station in no time, landing on the roof to find Saikhan waiting for her.

"Chief, three members of the White Lotus are waiting for you in your office,"

"Who the hell let them in my office?"

"I did, Chief,"

"I told you specifically to NEVER let anyone into my office under any condition. I don't care if its the Avatar or the Fire Lord, NO ONE has that clearance but me. Have you forgotten?"

"Forgive me, Chief. They insisted that was where they had to wait,"

"Yeah and every scum of the street will insist he is completely innocent, but you still don't believe them," Lin growled marching towards her office. She walked in shoving past them rather ungracefully and slammed the door shut with a wave of the hand.

"Why are you here?" Lin demanded getting straight to the point.

"Because you took the last airbender's sky bison for a joyride?"

"It wasn't a joyride I had to make an urgent delivery. Besides, the fluffy beast has been returned so what does it matter?"

"It matters because you were seen. People will wonder since when the 'furry beast' has been so comfortable with our Esteemed Chief Of Police. They'll begin to ask questions and spur rumors."

"Then tell them since I was five. Oogi chose me," Lin said flipping through some new papers that had been placed on her desk during her brief time away.

"Impossible! Sky bison choose airbenders, of which you are not!"

"That's what I thought when I went with Tenzin to get his animal companion. Aang was with us then. Just read his diary entries if you don't believe me. Oogi would still be mine if I didn't make him accept Tenzin then," Lin yelled back at them.

"The previous Avatar's diaries are simply artifacts that could have been fabricated by anyone on Air Temple Island,"

"Whatever! I don't have time to justify my actions to some close-minded old people who never listen, so leave!" Lin exclaimed dismissively.

"You are in no position to make demands!" Daizo yelled at her.

"Am I? I am the Chief Of Police Of this City and and you're in MY headquarter building— Saikhan! Get in here and get these three ancients out of my office before I reduce them to corpses!"

"You know, it would be a shame if a certain little girl went missing," Daizo said just before the door opened.

"Are you threatening me?" Lin asked raising a hand, stopping Saikhan.

"No, simply stating a fact. Good day, Chief Beifong," Daizo said bowing before departing with his two fellow grand lotus members, escorted out by Deputy Chief the door was closed again, Lin sat back and closed her eyes.

_They're okay. They're safe. Izumi can handle them. For fuck's sake! She can rule a nation, surely she will be fine with my children for a few days. There is no White Lotus in the Fire Nation anymore. There, they are safe. There, they are free. Fuck. Now my self-talk is sounding like the Dai Li's war machine of Joo Dees._

That night she went onto the roof of her house and pulled out her bison whistle. She wore it around her neck now in case of emergency.

She blew hard and waited.

It only took ten minutes for Oogi to arrive.

"Thanks for coming, boy!" she said running over. Then she saw someone on Oogi's head and frowned. "Tenzin! What are YOU doing here?"

"I saw Oogi leaving without me and assumed you needed help since it IS the middle of the night and the second time you've needed him in a week— in ten years actually," Tenzin said jumping off Oogi's head walking towards Lin. "Can you really blame me for being worried?" he asked extending a hand to touch her face like when he did when they were still together.

Lin stepped back and turned away. She had to avoid getting close to him. She was afraid that if they did touch, she wouldn't be able to let go.

"Yes, I can. You always worried too much," Lin said stomping her foot, turning a section of the roof between them, trading places so she was closer to Oogi and Tenzin farther away. "My business should be none of your concern. Besides, you gave me the bison whistle and thereby gave me permission to borrow Oogi whenever I needed!"

"Lin, you can trust me. You can tell me what is going on. I don't talk to _them_. We can talk about our children. Just tell me they're okay and I will leave,"

"They're fine. They're traveling and I just wanted to go check up on things," Lin said turning to put her arms on Oogi. The sky bison smelled her curiously then relaxed when he sensed the familiarity. He licked her clothing then turned and immediately to blow the saliva off with a flap of his tail, splattering Tenzin with it. He knew Lin didn't like being covered in the stuff.

"Trav- but Lin!" Tenzin yelled, rushing over to her, overcome with concern. Lin turned and bent a clay shingle off the roof and flicked her wrist, sending it hard into Tenzin's stomach, causing him to tumble a few feet away along the length of the roof. "It is too dangerous!"

"Not as dangerous as YOU coming HERE!" Lin replied.

"But they're just children-"

"They're fine! They're with Izumi. I'm just going to check on them—"

"The White Lotus-" Tenzin gasped clutching his stomach.

"What they don't know can't hurt them. Besides, didn't you just tell me you don't talk to them. So keep your mouth shut and everything will be fine!" Lin growled standing over Tenzin's doubled over figure with balled fists and bared teeth. When he didn't say another word, she turned, ran and jumped bending the roof to launch her higher and landed on Oogi's Head. Oogi looked at Tenzin with what resembled disappointment in the airbender. It was funny. It was like Oogi always wanted to be Lin's bison and not Tenzin's. He only listened to Tenzin because Lin asked him to so nicely, so many years before. Once Lin and Oogi were out of sight in the night sky, the Captain of the Guard of the Beifong Estate joined Tenzin on the roof of the main house on the property.

"Master Tenzin. We have come to inform you that we can either escort you off the estate property, or to escort you to a temporary holding cell until the Lady returns from her journey," Peng of the guard said appearing on the roof with his hands folded neatly behind his back like a Dai Li Agent dressed in the Beifong family guard uniform robes.

"Sorry?" Tenzin croaked struggling to look up and see who had approached him.

The guard's face softened with a little in sympathy. "I suppose we can also fetch the healer before escorting you to your chosen destination," Peng offered, hoisting Tenzin onto his shoulder and helping him off the roof by bending a pillar of earth to be level with them, walking onto it and bending it down again.

"She really hurt you," the live-in nurse said with a slight tone of surprise while treating Tenzin's wounds in her infirmary on the expansive property.

"Eh this is nothing. You should have seen Lin in her youth and early teens. The girl was as ruthless as she was powerful, to me at least," Tenzin said with a bittersweet sense of longing.

"THIS is nothing? Master, you have a broken rib, internal bleeding, and a punctured lung. How did you ever survive this long growing up loving such a brutal beast of a child?"

"I don't know, honestly,"

"Master Tenzin, may I ask you something?"

"Nowadays, the lady only strikes that hard when she's frightened. Do you know what is happening?" the healer asked.

Tenzin's brow furrowed in thought. "I am afraid I don't. She refuses to talk to me."

* * *

Iroh took it upon himself to teach the earth and air babies how to surf, but quickly found out that none of them could even swim.

"You've really never been to a pool or beach?" Iroh asked in disbelief.

"Nope! The deepest water we have ever stepped into has been a full bath tub," Jinkun said.

"Our parents were just _**really**_ protective of us," Huifan exclaimed, careful to say parents instead of just mother in case any non-family overheard.

Iroh nodded with understanding and took them to a shallow lagoon with much more still water and taught them all how to swim while Izumi watched from the beach. A team of Royal Guards were stationed around on the cliffs, in the water, and on the beach in disguise in case anything bad happened. _How did Lin manage so many children on her own?_ Izumi thought to herself as the children all chattered among themselves, engaged in and resolved small quarrels and carried on happily. _By not letting them go anywhere._

Within a couple of hours, Lin and Tenzin's children were on surfboards falling into the water and swimming out again. Izumi had a couple of the Royal Guards wait on boats in the water just in case one of the children hit their head on a rock or got swept away by a wave. They surfed until the children tired then ventured on to the Fire Lord's house for lunch and an afternoon nap during the heat of the day.

After their nap, everyone gathered in the large courtyard of the Fire Lord's vacation home to practice forms. The Earth and Air Children decided they wanted to teach the Fire Prince and Princess their form that they invented with Aunt Zumi and Aunt Kya that incorporated all bending styles.

"We have three airbenders, three earth benders, and three fire benders," Iroh said.

"Gosh! Why does Kya have to like ladies?" Izumi sighed to herself thinking how nice it would be if their children had young waterbenders to play with.

They practiced the form in the courtyard where not even the guards could see for two whole hours until all the boys had shed their shirts and the girls were down to their bindings in the sweltering heat of the Fire Islands. When late evening came, they headed back to the beach and learned how to play kuai ball then decided to have a sand sculpture contest.

Five year old Kang was trying to make a giant badgermole and was doing rather well for such a young person. Xiaoyu tried to make a giant sky bison. Jiexue tried to make a giant lion turtle. Jinkun was testing his sandbending very discreetly trying to make the most complex of animals: a dragon and Hungjian was trying to make a flying boar.

Hui Fan was simply pacing.

"Forget animals!" she said finally. She glanced around to make sure only her siblings and Fire lord Izumi and her siblings were within view and watching before continuing. "But I think I got the hang of seismic sense, AND I've been working on my sand bending. You're going to love this!" She stomped her feet and spread her hands and erected a miniature replica of Ember Island out of sand.

"Woah!" Kang exclaimed floating off the head of his badgermole, rushing over to see.

"You even put a tiny Aunt Izumi!" Hungjian exclaimed looking closely as Huifan giggled.

* * *

Izumi didn't go to bed until after all of the children were soundly dreaming. As she made her way across the courtyard to her own room, she heard the familiar sound of a sky bison coming closer.

"Tenzin? No, Lin,"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing yet, I just- needed to make sure!" Lin said falling into Izumi's arms.

"I know it is hard for you to accept it but they're growing up. They're fine, Lin. All asleep. You're free to go see, but don't wake them they'll be convinced you'll never let them leave." Izumi said.

Kang, Xiaoyu, and Jiexue were all sleeping in one massive bed under a set of Fire Nation crimson sheets. Jinkun and Hungjian shared the next room, and Huifan and Ursa slept together in the last room.

"See? They're all perfectly safe!" Izumi said confidently.

Lin shifted uncomfortably and reluctantly turned away from the bedrooms.

"Alright, I believe you," Lin said quietly.

"I am not trying to be mean or invasive, but maybe Kya should take a look at your head too, the next time she visits Huifan for a healing session. This paranoia is getting out of hand."

"I'm sorry,"

"It's not your fault, I know. Just... Try to get some rest please. The children only have three days left here, you should all enjoy it." Izumi insisted.

Lin nodded and reluctantly returned to Oogi and flew back to Republic City.

* * *

On the third night, the children all dressed up in Fire Nation clothes and went to the play house on the island to see the Boy in The Iceberg. They had their own private booth and were completely fixated on the show the entire time.

Afterwards, the children were too excited to go to sleep and wanted to reenact nearly all of the scenes, so Izumi went and left Iroh and Ursa in charge. The next day, everyone slept in late. Apparently Ursa had begun to teach the kids chi-blocking the previous night as well so when they woke, they played a game in which they sparred without bending after repeatedly chi-blocking each other. They got into grappling fights and rolled around the courtyard of the house all day. It wasn't until the fifth and final day that they went back to the beach before taking a ferry to the main port to board a steam ship back to Republic City.

The voyage was smooth until Hungjian and Jinkun got into a rather heated agument about something. The guardrail on the deck of the ship crumpled under the emotion of two young and powerful metalbenders, and Jinkun fell over the side of the steam ship and into the surf below.

"He's going to crash against the side of the ship!" some other traveler yelled.

Without a second of hesitation, Iroh dove over the edge of the ship and into the water to find the boy. He had enough air to push himself a safe distance away from the moving ship, but after inhaling a bit of sea water, became unresponsive. Iroh held onto the boy while the steam ship killed the engines and lowered a lifeboat into the water to retrieve the pair.

"Are there any waterbenders or healers on the ship?!" Izumi asked the captain and the people on the top deck.

"No, but we do have an herbalist!" someone called.

"An herbalist can't get water out of a boy's lungs," Izumi thought to herself running back to the children who were all huddled around Jinkun's petrified form.

Iroh tried pressing on the boy's chest, attempting to pump the water out, but nothing was working.

"Jiexue!" Huifan called her nine-year-old little sister.

"Huh?" Jiexue asked looking up with terrified little grey eyes.

"You can airbend the water out!" Huifan realized.

"What? But how?-"

"Push air into his lungs and displace the water so that he can breathe again!" Huifan instructed.

"I don't want to hurt him! What if I push too hard and he explodes or something?!" Jiexue asked.

"He WILL die if we do nothing! You have to try!" Huifan cried.

"I've never bent air I can't see," Jiexue cried.

"I do bend metal I can't see all the time!" Huifan yelled at her. "For Mom's sake! Go slowly! Try! Please!" Huifan said to her little sister. Jiexue touched her sister's chest to guage how much air was in the human lungs and lifted her hands over her brother's body. She gathered some air under her control and slowly wound it up before pushing it into her brother's lungs as gently as possible with tears in her eyes. The water was heavy as she tried to pass it with the air and push it out his left nostril. She had to push hard, but not too hard or he would burst inside. She finally felt it all inside of him. She encased each water droplet in a tiny tornado an pulled it out of him through the left nostril, replacing the space with fresh air. She added one last push and the rest of the water spewed out of him.

Jinkun sat up with a start, gasping, clutching the salt burnt nostril, looking around curiously.

Jiexue clutched her hands to her chest, intimidated by her new ability.

"What happened?" Jinkun asked.

"You almost drowned but Iroh and Jiexue saved you!" Huifan answered.

"Jiexue, I must say, you have a gift, child. Never in the world have I seen a bender with that fine control of one's element. Not even bloodbenders can be that precise!" Izumi said to the nine-year-old knowing she always felt her skills were inferior to Xiaoyu's bending.

Jiexue smiled.

"Don't forget to breathe yourself, little sister. Your heart is pounding faster than our golden rock's over here," Huifan reminded Jiexue placing a hand on the young girl's shoulder.

"Hey, sorry for pushing you overboard," Hungjian apologized.

"It's alright. We're brothers. It happens," Jinkun replied with a shrug.

Even with the stop and the rescue mission, the overzealous ship crew and paranoid captain fired up all engines and managed to pull into the ports of Republic City six hours early. This, unfortunately presented Izumi, and her charges with a whole new problem.

"Now, we could call your moment to flag a cab large enough, or try to figure out the Republic City Metro System," Izumi told the children, holding Kang and Xiaoyu's hands while the other children surrounded her. They all stood together on the pier donning Fire Nation civilian disguises.

"Oooor we could explore the city!" Huifan suggested.

"Yeah! We've never left the estate before Ember Island!" Jinkun added.

"We can come back to the pier in six hours BEFORE Luong comes with the car" Hungjian added referring to his mother's primary chauffeur.

Izumi raised an eyebrow.

"I suppose we caaaan if you guys promise to stick together, holding hands," Fire Lord Izumi told the children.

"YAAAAY!"

* * *


	14. 164AG Fall: Exploring

"So you've really never been in the city?" Izumi asked the children as they walked off the pier, towards the street that divided it from the rest of the city.

"Well, we three remember passing through it to get to the estate when we were little but that was it," Jinkun said indicating himself and her older siblings.

"Well, what do you want to do? Are you hungry, or..." Izumi asked.

"Hey check out that poster!" Huifan exclaimed darting across the street.

"Huifan-" Izumi ran and after her, picking her up and jumping onto the side walk just as a car slammed on its breaks and skidded to a stop.

"Hey watch where you're running!" the irritable driver yelled blasting fire out his window. Izumi jumped in front of Huifan and split the red fire and shot blue back at him.

"Watch where you are firebending!" the Fire Lord replied angrily. The driver huffed and flipped her off and drove away.

"Sorry!" Huifan said hanging her head in shame.

"You can't just run into traffic!" Izumi said to the girl said waiting and looking before guiding her across the street to the rest of the children who were standing with Iroh and Ursa.

"It's says pro-bending and there's a performance in an hour!" Huifan told Izumi.

"It's not a show! It's a tournament!" Ursa explained.

"A tournament?" Huifan asked.

"Yeah! It's a team sport. Each team has an earthbender, firebender, and waterbender and the goal is to knock your opponents off the back of the ring, but there are rules like you can only bend resources from within your zone and you can't invade the opponents team," Ursa explained.

"It's a mockery of bending!" Izumi sneered.

"So is that dance performance we saw in Zaofu last summer," Ursa shrugged.

"YOU WENT TO ZAOFU LAST SUMMER?!" Hungjian asked jealously.

"That's where Aunt Su lives!" Jiexue yelled.

"Yeah! Suyin Beifong creates and manages that dance company. She trains the metalbenders and does their choreography-" Ursa said.

"Woah!" Huifan gasped.

"Suyin's dance company is entirely different from pro-bending. It requires great control and power over an extremely difficult sub-form if earthbending. Pro-bending is just play-fighting. The competitors are worshiped for winning scuffles against other mediocre benders. There is no variety in their movements, no art or technique. Everyone just throws all the same punches regardless of their element or heritage!" Izumi told them.

"Please can we go see? At least once?" Huifan begged.

"I think it would be fun," Ursa said.

"Yeah. And it's easier to keep track of them all if they're sitting." Iroh said looking down at the six little Beifongs wearing Fire Nation clothes.

"Okay," Izumi relented.

* * *

"Nine tickets for the 3 PM pro-bending event." Izumi said to the man in the ticket booth.

"Any particular area where you'd like to sit?" the man asked.

"As close to the ring as possible," Izumi answered.

"That will be twelve hundred and forty two yuans," the ticket vendor informed her.

"What?! Isn't that expensive?" Huifan asked regretting her request that instant.

"Sh!" Izumi said. "You think the Fire Lord can afford to treat her nieces and nephews to a tournament?"

"Riiiiiight!" Huifan exclaimed.

They sat right at the edge. The ring was so high up and built over a lake of water. Embedded in the ground of the ring were Earth Kingdom symbol-shaped bendable disks. And each zone was separated by metal grates through which water was pumped up for use during battle.

"Woah! There are so many people here!" the children said leaning onto the railing.

"Here. Front row seats." Izumi said sitting down with Iroh and Ursa while the Beifong children stood and admired the interior of the pro-bending arena.

The main lights went down and the spotlights over the stage lit up.

"Now the showdown you've all been waiting for! The Golden Temple Tigerdillos versus the Pinnacle Palace Platypus Bears!" The crowd roared for the two teams as they took the stage for round 1. The first match up played three rounds, then the next match up won by a knockout, then the next match up was determined by a coin toss. The games were exhilarating for the children. Izumi watch the children's reactions more than the actual games. When they finally got out of the tournament, it was already dark, and the city clock tower struck the hour.

It was 10PM.

"The city car was supposed to meet us at the pier at 9!" Hungjian yelled breaking off into a sprint. The Royal Fire Nation Family struggled, but managed to keep up with the Beifong Children as they ran to the docks, but the private car was long gone. They took a shuttle to the edge of the city then looked up at the mountain road that lead to the hidden Beifong Estate.

"We could flag someone with a car." Xiaoyu thought aloud.

"Or Hungjian and I could bend us up." Huifan suggested shrugging.

"We can?" Hungjian asked.

"Do you never pay attention in training?" Huifan groaned rolling her eyes. "Just follow my lead!" Hungjian and Huifan lifted the piece of rock upon they were all standing up through the trees, scaling the mountain with their bending, all the way to the Beifong estate. When they came to the western wall of the estate that over looked the city, they were met by their mother and Aunt Kya standing on the roof. Mother looked livid.

"Before you get your knickers in a twist—" Izumi started to say.

"An HOUR!" Lin bellowed. "They were supposed to be at the docks an HOUR ago!"

"The ship pulled in early and so we decided to explore the city a little—" Izumi replied calmly with her hands up.

"Explore? The triads are gearing up for a Turf War and you guys want to explore?!" Lin was beside herself with fury.

If Lin were born a firebender, everyone would have been roasted alive. It was a good thing she wasn't a firebender like her brother, thought Izumi. .

"Mom! We didn't just wander the city aimlessly and dangerously! We were safe in a building! Huifan saw a poster for pro-bending, so we went to that-" Hungjian interrupted.

"You took them to see what?!" Lin yelled at Izumi in disbelief.

"Hey I dislike Pro-Bending just as much as you, but we figured it would be easier to keep an eye on them if they were all in one place, staying put, watching something instead of wandering the city," Izumi said calmly.

"You could have just taken them to Headquarters—" Lin suggested.

"And expose your llittle secret? Let the world know who they belong to? Is that what you really wanted with the Triads gearing up for a Turf War? What I did was the only option to keep them hidden,"

"—you could have taken them HOME!"

"They've lived their entire lives in this house and not seen the city ONCE Lin. I understand your concerns when they were younger, but they're strong and capable benders now. They have disguises and can protect themselves. You're doing them a disservice keeping them locked up here."

"Children, inside now! I want you out of those Fire Nation robes by the time I'm in," Lin snapped. The children all obeyed, launching themselves over the wall of the garden with airbending or earthbending and sprinting inside before their mother yelled again.

"Iroh, Ursa, go with them. Give us some time." Izumi instructed her children.

Lin waited for the children to be safely across the garden and get in the house before letting her walls come down and taking a seat on the roof of the wall, running her fingers through her hair in an effort to calm down. Izumi jumped up with help from fire blasts out of her feet and sat next to Lin, opposite Kya.

"What's bothering you now?" Izumi asked.

"That you're right!" Lin yelled with frustration. "When Hungjian was born, I swore to myself that he would never be neglected. That none of my children would. I couldn't stand what my mother did with me, or didn't do, for that matter, to Su and me. I wanted to always be there for them, to love them and teach how to love, but with the White Lotus still monitoring my every move— I feel like I can't do anything but pretend they don't exist."

"Even now?" Izumi asked.

"Yes. If they knew you and Kya knew about my children, and if they found out about the Ember Island Trip, they may try to banish them from the City,"

"Lin, how can you give them so much power? You are the chief of police, yet when you speak of them, you sound like you are just a soldier, and they are the Dai Li. They should be thanking you for your service to the world, not threatening to send away your children for existing. So what if Tenzin has a new wife and a new life? Everyone has a history," Izumi argued.

"I just don't want to see them hurt," Lin said looking back at the house with teary eyes.

"Everyone gets hurt eventually, and more than once. You can't protect them forever. It is just life, Linny. If the White Lotus gives you any real problems, or threatens those babies one more time, send a hawk my way and I'll bring my entire royal navy the next time I come to the City. We will take that island and crush them!" Izumi said putting an arm around the earth bender. Lin said nothing. "I'm serious. We have your back, Linny."

"Thank you, Izumi," Lin whispered leaning on the Fire Lord's shoulders.

After a few more minutes of togetherness in the moon-lit silence, the three women retreated to the house. The children were in the sparring arena beneath the garden trying out some stuff they'd seen in the pro-bending tournament.

"It's late. You all should be tired from crossing the ocean and watching the tournament. Go to bed. We start with sparring after meditation tomorrow morning," Lin told the children.

They didn't protest after seeing their mother so angry for the first time ever earlier.


	15. 165AG: Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hungjian 15  
> Huifan 14  
> Jinkun 12  
> Jiexue 9  
> Xiaoyu 7  
> Kang 6
> 
> Just in case you forget the ages/birth years/current year^^^ (Because I get really confused while writing)

It was a busy morning. So much food had to be prepared. The chef, Mo, Lin counted her children at the table.

Five. Five?

"Guys, where's Huifan?"

"Probably still sleeping," Hungjian said absentmindedly.

Lin frowned. That girl NEVER slept in late.

Lin went to her room and pushed the door open. The room was quiet, the bed unmade and unoccupied, and the window agape.

"Where did she go?" Lin asked herself as she moved to close the window. As she rounded the bed, she froze. The photograph on the girl's bedside table had been knocked over. The lamp shade on the wall mounted light dented.

Lin turned. She saw darts. Darts sticking out of the wall, likely redirected by the young metalbender, Lin looked down and saw a few on the floor. Then the open window again.

Her heart seized up in her chest. She closed her eyes and slammed her foot into the ground. Nothing for miles. No sign of her.

Her fear turned to anger as the whole house began to shake. She ran to her room to grab her bison whistle then ran downstairs.

"She's gone!" Lin announced with tears in her eyes.

"What?" Kya asked bending water to her hands.

"Not dead. Spirits. I hope not dead. Just gone!" she blinked away tears. "Oogi should be here soon."

"Just Oogi?" Izumi asked standing up.

Lin nodded and covered her face.

"Lin, she'll be okay!" Kya said embracing the earthbender.

"Iroh, Ursa, you're in charge. Keep everyone together. If someone needs to pee, you ALL go. Stay away from the doors and windows. In fact, don't leave the training room until we return. Mr. Doan will bring you food," Izumi said ushering Lin out back as the bison arrived. They flew to the police station.

"Chief Beifong?" Some of the Officers asked startled to see their Chief not in uniform and at the station on her one day off.

"Fire Lord Izumi?" a secretary reading a fire nation fashion magazine recognized.

"We're here to report a missing person." Izumi said. "And it will be processed IMMEDIATELY," she demanded.

They nodded furiously.

Kya kept her arms around Lin as if she needed stabilizing.

"She's fourteen years old. She has a thin frame, Southern Water Tribe build with the light skin a highborn from the Southern Earth Kingdom and a heart shaped face. Her eyes are emerald and her hair is black. She's a metalbender named Huifan and was born in the city," Izumi said.

"Does she have a last name?" the secretary asked.

Izumi turned to Lin. "Yeshe!" Lin answered immediately.

"Any other identifying marks?" the secretary asked.

"Behind her left ear... it looks like this," Lin said slamming her palm on the metal counter stamping a symbol into it with her bending. It was the Earth Kingdom symbol with three swirls instead of one in the middle. She bent the counter smooth again once the secretary had replicated it on the missing person report.

"Do you have a photograph of the missing person?" secretary asked.

"In my office," Lin replied walking past the desk without another word, beckoning the secretary to follow. She pulled open the top left drawer and shuffled the papers out of view before withdrawing a portrait shot of Huifan from that year. Each year all of the children got portraits and they sent the individual portraits to Lin's grandfather for his birthday without any indication in the letter of their relationship to Lin in case they were intercepted.

"Here," Lin said. "I want the original back ASAP."

"Yes, Chief," the secretary said nodding. The mug artist painted the girl onto the poster template, then the secretary added the information, and sent it to the copy department to make posters.

"Daizo is going to come after me as soon as the flyers are posted, but we HAVE TO FIND HER!" Lin cried.

"Daizo can't touch you or the kids. I'll make sure of it!" Izumi insisted taking the phone off the hanger on Lin's desk and calling the Fire Nation Capital. "Dad? Yeah, Linny's eldest girl is missing. Huifan. Can you send a couple Yuyan archers and twelve members of my elite guard to Republic City?... yes... Iroh and Ursa are watching the others... yes we filed the missing person report... Lin thinks the head of the White Lotus is going to come after her because of the 'identifying mark' that Lin alerted the police of... its their crest... yeah... I said the same thing... I don't know what Daizo has done to make Lin believe he could do anything... okay... okay.. thanks, Dad!... I love you too... thank you! Bye."

"Dad said don't worry. We'll find her,"

There was a knock on the door.

"Chief Beifong, the posters are being distributed," the secretary informed the three women.

"Don't forget to breathe, Linny," Kya said.

Lin took a deep breath and walked over to one of the book shelves in her office and shifted through images of weapons. She metalbent the dart she snagged from her daughter's bedroom out of her pocket, not wanting to touch it and tried to identify it.

The report disrupted almost every radio on the city to spread the world.

* * *

"I have to go into the city!" Tenzin told Pema who was feeding five year old Jinora, two year old Ikki and newborn Meelo.

"Tenzin, the whole city is searching. Surely they can find the girl without you personally helping," Pema said.

"I- it's complicated. Please. Huifan, she's a daughter of a friend and I can't just do nothing," Tenzin insisted.

"Alright. Well be safe, Tenzin, and don't forget about us at the end of the day.

"I won't. I mean I will. I will be safe, and I won't forget about you all. Thank you for being so understanding," Tenzin said hurriedly.

* * *

"YOU LOST HER!" Tenzin bellowed barging into Lin's office.

"DON'T YOU DARE BLAME THIS ON ME! I'VE DONE EVERYTHING I COULD FOR ALL OF THEM WHILE YOU'VE DONE NOTHING BUT SIT BY COMFORTABLY ON THAT STUPID LITTLE ISLAND OF YOURS NOT EVEN WATCHING!" Lin yelled at him with tears pouring down her face.

"WELL, I AM HERE NOW!" he yelled back throwing his arms in the air, blowing the hair of the three women before him back. "She's my daughter too!"

"You lost the privilege to call her that when you submitted to Daizo and let him send us away!" Lin cried.

"YOU AGREED IT WAS FOR THE BEST THEN, WHAT CHANGED?"

"EVERYTHING!" Lin replied turning away from him to look out the window of her office. "Poor Huifan. She must be so scared!"

* * *

"Why don't you come in here so I can slice those stupid little grins of your faces with those silver fillings I felt in your teeth when we were coming into this places!" Huifan yelled beating on the walls of her wooden enclosure suspended tens of yards from any earth in a cavern.

"I'm not grinning," Daizo replied flatly.

"WHATEVER! Face me like real men! And TRY to shoot me with those darts again! I dare you! You COWARD!" Huifan screamed.

"I think not. You and your siblings are far too powerful to be trusted to walk the planet. Soon enough you will disrupt the balance we have fought so hard to achieve in Republic City. The Air Nation doesn't need you earth and air hybrids that are descendants of three of the great heroes that saved the world from the Fire Nation,"

"DAIZO!" Huifan yelled recognizing his sentiment.

"It's good to see you again, Huifan-", the grand lotus said calmly.

"WE WILL BEAT YOU! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS!"

"We already have. Your mother is broken, your father enraged, and your siblings are unprotected. They will come for you, and when they do, we will reverse what should have never happened. Your births-"

"Father would never let it happen!"

"He let it happen the first time. What makes you think he's changed?"

"Mother has leverage now! Three airbenders who will NEVER bend to you!"

"They lack restraint-"

"They're children who bested your greatest hitmen when they were mere toddlers! You don't stand a chance! You can't even win a fair fight against a fourteen year old! You're WEAK!"

"Stop wasting your energy dear girl. You'll need it soon enough to fight for your right to live in this cruel world." Daizo said staring at the enraged girl's striking emerald green eyes through the slats of the suspended wooden cage.

* * *

"Meqing, I want to know EVERY development with the missing child case," Lin said as calmly as she could to her personal secretary.

"Yes, Chief," the head detective of the missing person department said. "Chief Beifong?"

"Yes?"

"She's your daughter, isn't she? Forgive me for prying but, I have never seen you in such a state of grief," Meqing said.

"It is that obvious?" Lin sighed with defeat.

"Yes. But don't worry. I won't tell anyone." Meqing said.

Just then the phone rang.

"Hello?" Izumi grabbed it.

"Mom, I think they came back. Peng sounded the alarm. We're holed up in the arena, but Hungjian says he can feel people tunneling. He just can't tell just how many!" Iroh said in a panic.

"Tell everyone to stay together and stay calm. Tell Hungjian and Jinkun to make the ground around denser and harder to get to. We're coming as fast as we can-" Izumi said.

"They're invading the Estate!" Izumi announced.

"I should have never left them!" Lin exclaimed.

"Come on. Let's go fight for our children," Tenzin said putting an arm around Lin.

Lin shoved him off of her forcefully. "Saikhan!" she called. "Please show Councilman Tenzin to a holding cell until we return. And issue a restraining order. I don't want him within a hundred meters of me other than when necessary during my weekly reports to the council." Lin ordered her deputy.

He saluted. "Yes, Chief!"

"Lin- let me help you with them! Lin, please!" Tenzin yelled fighting Saikhan.

"Resisting arrest will only get you more time behind bars, Councilman!" Saikhan warned.

"But I've done nothing wrong!" Tenzin cried.

"Oh please! We ALL know that's a lie! You touched me against my will which according to article 453 section 28 part 3c of the United Republic's law book, that could be grounds for conviction for sexual assault. Go with Saikhan if you know what's good for you and me," Lin ordered running to catch up with Izumi and Kya to go steal Oogi.

* * *

They landed in the garden of the Beifong Estate after ten minutes of flying. Lin earthbent open the door to the underground training space and she, Izumi and Kya flew down the stairs, Kya bringing with her more water from the streams just in case the troughs underground ran dry.

Lin kicked a tremor down the long, dark hallway and Hungjian returned it.

"They're okay-" the three women sprinted right into an ambush in the arena. Lin ducked, Kya made an ice sphere, Izumi burned everything to ash that came near her.

"Mamaaaa!" Jiexue cried.

"Maaaaaa!" Xiaoyu clutched her big sister and her little brother while Kang hugged everybody.

Lin tunneled into the metalbending training room for weapons and quickly re-emerged from the ground in full armor with extra cables and metal strips. She bound attacker after attacker in lengths of cable she separated from her main spools. She tightened their ankles and wrists so they couldn't bend and slapped flat pieces over their mouths so they couldn't speak. Kya bound them in ice or knocked them unconscious and Izumi fought to kill.

Peng and some of the other higher ups were still fighting but most of the guards had gone down. The live-in healer was using her waterbending for combat for the first time in her life to protect the children she had grown to love so dearly in the past six years.

"They're distracted!" Jinkun whispered to Hungjian as he bent a spear of earth out of the arena floor to cut the rope bonds off his hands. Hungjian did the same. Jinkun greed his little siblings then looked around.

"What do we do? Help Mom and Aunt Kya and Aunt Zumzu?" Hungjian asked his siblings in a huddle.

"Jian, we will create a diversion, a dust cloud. Jiexue, Xiaoyu, and Kang, you have to get on your air scooters to go undetected by the earthbenders and get Mom, Aunt Zumzu, and Aunt Kya out of here, okay?"

"What about Captain Peng and the others?"

"They'll be okay! They always are! Go!" Jinkun ordered. Kang honed in on his mother while Jiexue licked on Izumi and Xiaoyu locked on Kya, then simultaneously, Hungjian and Jinkun kicked up a massive dust clouds each enveloping half of the arena.

"Where are the boys?!" Lin demanded the three airbenders once they were safe, up in the house while Peng and the remaining guards chained up those who didn't flee the dustcloud in time.

"I don't know," Jiexue said shrugging.

Lin looked up with a sigh of frustration.

"Are you sure this a good idea?" HungJian asked Jinkun asked in a whisper. "Giving ourselves up?"

"We just need to get some bendable earth to Huifan and she will take care of everything. Trust me!"

"What if they don't take us to the same place?"

"They will!"

"HEY! No talking back there!" The driver yelled.

"Can you metalbending this truck?" Hungjian whispered.

"No. It's platinum, you?" Jinkun replied.

"No,"  
They waited patiently, tied up in the back of the truck.

"Daizo, we managed to capture the two earthbending boys,"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE BOYS! They're disposable! We need the airbenders! The airbenders are the only ones who could put into question Tenzin's reputation!"

"But sir, I was thinking we could use the earthbenders as a lure. Beifong values all of her children equally. It is her weakness,"

"You have a point, I guess we'll keep them for a while,"

"I will not be a weakness!" HungJian grunted pulling his arms out of his rope bonds with his raw strength.

"Huh?!" their abductors swing open the door and Hungjian sandwiched the two assailants with two slabs of earth. Jinkun jumped out with his hands still tied and did a sweep kick knocking more white lotus over.

"You find Huifan! I'll hold them off!" Hungjian yelled facing the onslaught of white lotus members.

Jinkun closed his eyes and let his seismic sense guide him to a massive cavern where he suspected they'd have her suspended.

"Huifan!"

"Jin?!" HuiFan called.

"No, you don't!" Daizo yelled firebending at Jinkun. Jinkun did a backflip then cartwheeled to the side. He coated his hands and feet in rock like a Dai Li agent and climbed the wall and kicked a stone to Huifan. It wasn't much but it should be enough. Daizo hit a button and Huifan's wooden cage was encased in platinum. Huifan smashes the wood with her pebble but couldn't get through the platinum.

"Come on, platinum, budge!" She said pushing as hard as she could. "It's just purified metal. Just another form of earth!"

"Leave him alone!" Hungjian yelled attacking Daizo from behind.

"You foolish children!"

"You're calling us foolish?" Jinkun yelled jumping off the wall and onto Daizo's back, covering his eyes with a rock blindfold and kicking him off the cliff. Daizo ripped the mask off and firebent himself to the opposite side using a knife to grip into the cave side.

Just then part of the roof broke down and water began to pour in.

"Huifan!" The brothers called. Waterbenders flooded the cavern.

"Huifan! They have a bloodbender!" Hungjian yelled.

Jinkun cried out as his limbs twisted in unnatural directions.

Just then, Huifan kicked a dent in the wall of her platinum cage.

"Huifan, you rule!" she said before jumping out of it. She almost fell to the bottom of the massive cavern to her death, but managed to bend the entire platinum box into a whip and grab onto the wall of the cave and swing over to the ledge. She latched her platinum weapon around the neck of the bloodbender torturing Jinkun and snapped his spinal chord and brainstem, killing.

"Stay away from my little brother!" Huifan yelled at the others as she readied herself for another attack.

Another bloodbender tried to take them, but Huifan was resistant for some reason. She ducked and evaded water and ice and sliced through ankles and wrists with her platinum whip giving it a blade sometimes while twirling it around her body.

"Leave them! We have to get back to Mom and Aunt Kya and Aunt Zumi, to warn them! They're after the airbenders!" Jinkun called clutching a dislocated elbow.

Huifan looked at her last victim and slashed a gash in his face and then ran back to her brothers. Together, they earthbent themselves out of the cavern.

"Where are we?" Hunjian thought aloud thought as they stood surrounded by tall grass in the middle of an empty field looking up at the stars.

"I don't know, try the tremors!" Jinkun suggested to Huifan. "Yours reach further than mine."

Huifan stomped her foot sending a ripple throughout the earth.

"I know where they are!" Lin said looking up from the kitchen counter top. "Can you watch the airbenders while I-" she began to ask Kya and Izumi

"NO!" nine-year-old Jiexue yelled.

"Sorry?" Lin asked looking at her oldest airbender and middle daughter with surprise at her sudden outburst.

"We are staying together. Whenever you leave, bad things happen! We can stay on Oogi while you fight the bad guys, but we are going with you, Mommy!"

Lin sighed. "This is not a topic up for discussion-"

"Of course not. We've already made our decision and we're going with you. Come on Xiaoyu, Kang." Jiexue said walking ahead of Lin towards the sky bison. Lin sighed and stopped at the closet by the door and pulled it three big coats. "At least cover yourselves. It's chilly tonight," Lin sighed. Izumi, Kya, Iroh, and Ursa followed Lin and her three youngest onto Oogi and flew south to where Lin felt the origin of her daughter's seismic signature.

* * *

It was like a secret language only they knew so that they would always be able to find each other. As soon as they landed, Lin jumped down and was tackled by her badgermoles. Just then the ground flipped over and consumed Oogi, and everyone in his saddle.

"No!" Lin tore up the ground. Huifan, Hungjian and Jinkun all spread out and they followed suit underground. They couldn't move a two ton beast very fast and found the bison quickly in a giant atrium.

"Isn't this our lucky day? The entire Royal Family has come our way?" Daizo said clapping his hands dully as an icy blade as held to each of the airbenders' throats, Izumi and her children, and Kya.

Huifan looked around with her absurdly long platinum whip in hand.

"Aunt Lin! Focus on the airbenders. We'll be fine!" Iroh yelled.

"Sh!" The white lotus holding him hissed hitting his Adam's apple with the flat of the knife blade.

"What do you want now Daizo?"

"Their lives-"

"You'll never have them," Lin growled. "Even when I die," she said. At the same time, she, Izumi, Kya, and Iroh broke free. Izumi zapped the captors holding Ursa as Kya slashed the one holding Jiexue across the room. Guards who had lined the walls entered the fight. Lin, Hungjian, Jinkun, and HuiFan gave them the high ground with their earthbending. Lightning cracked the walls and ice slashed whole limbs off as they moved towards the surface of the ground with Oogi. The three airbenders also sent gusts of wind to the unfortunate souls who tried to scale their rising cliff all while staying close to their mommy. Finally, they saw the sky again and boarded Oogi and flew back north to the city.

Lin was in a state of shock with her airbenders all cradled in her lap, trapped by her legs and her arms wrapped around her earthbenders.

"Aunt Lin, you're bleeding," Ursa said reaching for a bloody gash on Lin's back.

"I'm fine," Lin said.

Izumi turned to Kya who nodded and came over with water to heal the earthbender.

"Mama,"

"Hm?"

"It if makes you feel any better, I can bend platinum now," Huifan announced.

Lin squeezed her children tighter. "There's no doubt you have the Beifong blood in you. And that of Master Katara and Avatar Aang. You're all so powerful, and make me so proud," Lin said to them. She turned to Hungjian and Jinkun. "As mad as I am at you two for giving yourselves up, and giving me heart failure. I could not thank you enough for looking out for your siblings. You displayed great courage and sacrifice today." They hugged her.

"Mama, are we too old to all sleep together?" Hungjian asked.

Lin laughed. "In the same bed yes. But why don't I do this and install a bunk room or something where we can all crash together when we feel scared? You can still have your own room and own stuff but we'll all be sleeping no more than three feet away from each other," Lin suggested.

"Okay."

* * *

That night, they converted a smaller room into a bunk room with three stacked beds on either side and a twin bed for Lin in the middle. Hungjian and Jinkun both had top bunks. HuiFan and Jiexue has middle bunks and Xiaoyu and Kang has bottom bunks. Lin switched the light off and went to bed while Izumi called the police station.

"Call off the msmtarch. We found Huifan?" fire Lord Izumi informed Saikhan.

"And What shall we do about the Councilman Tenzin?"

"Tell him we have everything under control and that everyone is safely sleeping and make sure he stays there for the night," Izumi replied.

"Yes, your majesty," Saikhan said hanging up the phone.

"Overnight? Spirits! Izumi is insane. I want proof they're okay! Saikhan! You gotta help me out of here! I'm a councilman for spirits' sake! I can't be stuck in jail! And the restraining order! You must think that's insane!"

"My Chief is many things, Councilman, but insane is not one of them. If the Fire Lord is relaying her orders, I must obey. Sleep well, Councilman."

* * *

The next morning, Tenzin's cell door clicked open and slid to the side to reveal his ex-wife's back.

"We need to talk," Lin said walking away from the holding cell, having Tenzin follow her to an interrogation room simply because they had soundproof walls.

"I will lift the restraining order under one condition," she began, sitting down opposite him.

"What is that?" Tenzin asked, his eyes dark and heavy from lack of sleep in the uncomfortable prison cell.

"You stop caring about me," Lin said looking up at him with glassy eyes.

"How could I-"

"Every time you show up with that same worrisome expression, it just reminds me of exactly what I cannot have and what we cannot be. It is too reminiscent of the past and it hurts me. It hurts to be teased with your affection only when something bad happens and I need it to end for my sake and my children's. Daizo wants them dead because their existence threatens the happy balance they have created on Air Temple Island with you and Pema at the head of the new Air Nation. Disrupt that balance and you lose what we had together, and me."

"So what- how am I supposed to-"

"From this day forward, I am the Chief Beifong and you are Councilman Tenzin, and of you ever treat me otherwise, I'll have you locked away for a week. Falter again, and a month. Slip up a third time, and I may have to leave Republic City permanently, with my children."

"Won't that disrupt the happy balance more than a brief visit to your office to check up on-"

"My decisions have been made. This is not a negotiation. Your agree to act with indifference, or the restraining order stays and I charge you for assault,"

"For touching you to make sure you're alive and okay-"

"The contact was unwanted. Do we have a deal, Councilman?" Lin asked coldly.

Tenzin sighed miserably. "Yes, Chief Beifong," Tenzin said offering his hand across the table. Lin shook it firmly as a single tear slid down her face. She wiped it away quickly just as the doors slid open and Saikhan entered to Tenzin from the building.

* * *

"Did you find the girl?" Pema asked Tenzin curiously.

"Yes," Tenzin sighed. _But I lost another in the process._ he thought sadly.

"I'm sorry honey that things don't always turn out quite how we'd like." Pema said compassionately rubbing his back and draping her arms around him.

All he could think of was Lin and those five babies she had with him. He missed her. He missed her passion and her death glare. He missed her rare smile and her bright emerald green eyes. He missed holding her strong body, knowing how she was practically unbeatable, indestructible in a fight, but completely submissive to him in the night. He missed the laughter and smiles of his sons and eldest daughter when they played together or practiced sparring. He missed cradling his two young non bender babies late into the night. He missed his old house and his old family. He missed everything he could no longer acknowledge ever existed.


	16. 166AG

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple of shorts of the kiddos in this year, at these ages and this stage in their growth and development.
> 
> Hungjian 16, Huifan 15, Jinkun 13, Jiexue 10, Xiaoyu 8, Kang 7

**Racing**

"It's an underground race track?" Hungjian yelled seeing a brand new, pre-release Satomobile parked at the starting line of the new underground arena in the mountain where they lived.

"Happy sixteenth birthday, my son," Lin said placing a hand on his muscular shoulder. "I know you can't go very far, and I am sorry for that, but just because we live in isolation doesn't mean we can't still have fun. That being said, I thought today, instead of training, you could learn how to drive one of these things."

"Mom, you're the best!" Hungjian yelled jumping into her arms, crushing Lin in a back breaking hug. Lin smiled and patted her grown up son on the shoulder.

"Can we watch?" 10-year-old Jiexue asked with her hands clasped together eagerly.

"Can I learn how to drive tooo?!" seven-year-old Kang asked jumping up and down with excitement.

"When you are sixteen, I will teach you how to drive too," Lin replied firmly. "Today is Hungian's day, so only he gets to operate the machine." Lin promised all of her children.

Hunjian learned all of the controls with his mother guiding him from the passenger seat and then started off slowly going no faster than fifty kilometers per hour around the track.

"When can we race it?" Hungjian asked.

"Patience, my ambitious little badgermole. I want you to be able to drive eighty laps around this track at a constant fifty kilometers per hour with your eyes closed before I let you exceed sixty." Lin said.

Hungjian pouted.

"But if you would like a taste of speed, as motivation for you to put in the work and patience, move out and get into the passenger seat," Lin ordered with a smirk.

Hungjian smiled. The next time they reached the finish line, he stopped smoothly, and got out and traded places with his mother, Republic City's Esteemed Chief of Police. She checked that he buckled his seat belt before starting the engine.

"Keep your head against the back rest, and just enjoy the ride. Don't try to look to either side. It won't be easy, and could be dangerous," Lin instructed her son. He licked his lips and took a deep breath.

Lin took off gradually pressing the gas pedal towards the floor and accellerated at a constant rate.

"Mom! You're passing eighty! MOM! A HUNDRED?" Hungjian yelled turning only his eyes to check the spedometer of the vehicle. Lin said nothing as she zipped around the track at record breaking speeds with her son in the passenger seat.

"Bank this turn," Lin ordered. Hungjian earthbent a ramp ahead of them and they whipped around a corner.

He screamed and then laughed. Eventually, Lin let go of the steering wheel.

"MOM! WHAT ARE YOU-" Hungjian yelled as the car went even faster for a whole lap before gradually slowing.

Lin took a whole two lap to slow to a stop so that she didn't give her son whiplash and then parked the satomobile in front of the bleachers where the rest of her children sat waiting.

"What was that power boost at the end?" Hungjian asked.

"My bending," Lin replied flipping her hair back and sighing, stretching her arms and legs as she stood out of the car. "I put the car into neutral and modified the traction of the surface of the track by changing the coarseness of the ground and then increased the angular speed of the wheels by bending the metal axles and then boom! Racing!"

"WOAH! Mom! Can I go for a ride too?" Huifan asked. "PLEASE! I want to metalbend the wheels too!"

"Okay," Lin said. "But no metalbending boosts until you are sixteen AND can drive the car NORMALLY!"

"Awwww okay!" Huifan said climbing down the bleachers and into the passenger seat.

The rest of the morning was giving joyrides to each of her children. After lunch, Hungjian practiced his driving with supervision by either Lin, Captain Peng of the Estate Guard, or Luong, Lin's chauffeur.

* * *

**Personalities**

The children were growing up so nicely, Lin thought as she walked past some of them sitting at the dinner table, pouring over books, magazines, scrolls, and parchment, reading and writing. They were like little sponges when it came to information, absorbing everything Lin made available to them. They were becoming stronger, smarter, and braver. Their personalities were diversifying drastically.

Jinkun was building sculptures again like when he was younger. He loved being in the garden or underground, wherever he could surround himself with earth.

Huifan was into fashion magazines from Ba Sing Se and Zaofu(much to Lin's dismay) in particular and constantly experimenting to find new ways she could weave metal into her own clothing.

Hungjian was fascinated with various fighting styles. He followed probending religiously and spent hours a day in the gym teaching himself new techniques and training with various weapons. Lin brought in a swordmaster and weapons specialist to train him weekly leading to Hungjian's discovery of his love for using hammers to augment his earthbending.

Kang found entertainment playing tricks on his siblings and using his airbending to disappear quickly and get himself out of reach of their rage-filled bending.

Jiexue was into history and fantasy, constantly reading legends about all four bending styles and their origins to gain a better understanding of air since everything was so connected."Mama, I want to go to a library!" Jiexue said the next morning.

"Why don't you give me a list of the subjects in which you're interested and I go make some selections. You remember what happens when we take the risk of you children being seen. Just last year-"

"I know I know, I'll go make the list," Jiexue sighed.

The list was written on a scroll over two meters long. That day at the station, Lin sent one of her secretaries to the library. "Get five books on each of these subjects. You can bring my car and two officers to do the heavy lifting. Thanks" Lin said handing the secretary the list.

"Uh... Chief..."

"Please," Lin added.

The secretary sighed and headed to the library with two other officers in the Chief's personal car.

Lin returned home with over two hundred books. The library didn't usually allow such a large check out, but Lin made sure to enclose bribe money and collateral at the bottom of the scroll her daughter had given her to take to the library.

"You have them for three weeks," Lin said to Jiexue without even a glance as Luong and Peng helped carry the books in from the garage placing them in the parlor for Jiexue to read.

"Thank you, Mom!" Jiexue yelled hugging her mother from behind before she could go take off her heavy metal uniform.

Lin smiled and turned around and returned her daughter's hug.

The children were all so alike and so different. They spent less time battling each other in the arena and more time learning as much about the world as they could without leaving the walls of the estate these days. For them, Lin subscribed to magazines from all over the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation for the children to read about news, economics, politics, and entertainment so they could expand their horizons safely, without leaving the estate.

* * *

**Mastery**

"Mom, look! It says the Avatar recently passed her mastery exams in earthbending and has commenced firebending training! And she's only twelve! Do you think we're master earthbenders yet?" Huifan asked her mother reading a special article in a newspaper from the earth kingdom capital.

"Hm. A master at twelve? Really?" Lin asked glancing at the article. She almost keeled over laughing. "Even my dear mother claimed she never became a master herself. I swear the term master as lost all significance nowadays. I doubt that girl can even dent metal if she ran at it head-first as fast as she could," Lin sighed.

"How do you assess bending masters for the police force?" Huifan asked curiously.

"That's a really good question! Well, first they have to pass their earthbending mastery exams at the Beifong Earthbending academy and then their Metalbending exams at the same academy and then their theory exams at the special police academy. It's a process that typically takes ten years to complete from age twelve to twenty two," Lin answered.

"What about you? Did you test out of the academy early because you were the Chief's Daughter? I remember Aunt Zumzi mentioning how you were a full-fledged officer by seventeen!"

"I did test out, but not because I was the chief's daughter. I tested out because I was ambitious and worked hard. _**I**_ wanted to put my skills to use and protect my city as soon as possible!" Lin confirmed.

"When did you pass your earth mastery?" Huifan asked looking up at Lin with wide eyes, full of admiration.

"When I was eight,"

"And when did you pass metal?"

"When I was twelve,"

"And when did you pass the theory exam?"

"Sixteen,"

"Do you think I could pass the metal exam now? I'm know I'm just fifteen, but I can bend platinum now AND best Fire Lord Izumi and Aunt Kya in a two-on-one battle, and I could PROBABLY beat you, Miss Esteemed Chief of Police, Mommy!" Huifan exclaimed quoting a recent article she read on her mother in the Republic City Newspaper.

"Don't get too confident, Sweetie. The exam lasts five days and is _**extremely**_ grueling,"

"Can I at least try it? I know we live in isolation, but you said that doesn't mean we can't have fun! Don't you have the curriculum on a piece of paper somewhere?"

"We don't have the facilities for some of the field exams."

"We could go to an Academy location _**outside**_ the United Republic! Remember when we went to Ember Island? Nothing bad happened then. Maybe I can go to a Beifong Academy location somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, beyond the reach of the White Lotus!" Huifan suggested excitedly. "PLEASE!"

"Let me see if I can sort something out with one of the sifu's at the academy where I tested," Lin told her eldest daughter.

"Was the Avatar trained in the Beifong method of Earthbending like Grandpa Aang?" Huifan asked a bit further down the page on the article about the twelve year old Avatar.

"I believe she was trained in the traditional method of earthbending by a master from Ba Sing Se," Lin replied absentmindedly as she chopped vegetables to cook with dinner.

"Mama, why didn't you teach her?" Huifan asked curiously.

"I was slated to until, your father and I separated. Then, the White Lotus decided to change her master since they wanted to minimize interaction between Tenzin and me because... you know why."

"Oh yeah,"

"But enough about the past. Let me make a few calls after dinner and see if I can arrange for you a mastery exam. While I'm at it- JIAN! Do you want to take the official Beifong Academy earthbending and metalbending mastery exam with your sister?" Lin called.

"Just earth please!" Hungjian replied. Lin's firstborn did love playing in the dirt, but was still rather messy with metal. He could do it well enough, but it wasn't as natural for him as it was for Huifan and Lin.

"Wimp!" Huifan yelled from where she was kneeling at a barstool watching her mother cook.

"Be nice to family!" Lin snapped going back to chopping her vegetables.

* * *

**Examinations**

They chose to go to the academy in Gaoling where the teachers were the most strict.

"Chief Lin Beifong Of Republic City's police. It is an honor to have you in our school," the headmaster said bowing.

"Thank you for having us," Lin said entering with her six children.

"And who will be taking their exams this week?" the headmaster asked.

"These two," Lin said pushing Hungjian and Huifan forward. "Yeshe Hungjian and Yeshe Huifan," Lin requested.

"Yeshe?" Huifan whispered.

"It is your father's name." Lin whispered back.

"Father has a last name?"

"Yes, just don't tell anybody!"

"Okay!" Huifan replied.

"Yeshe..." the headmaster wrote down. "Do they need any accommodations during the exam?"

"Accommodations? Your school offers accommodations for mastery exams? It is disgraceful!" Lin exclaimed. "What is a master who can't even complete an exam without accomodations."

"Forgive me, miss Beifong, we will end the practice immediately. Do you have any other requests for the exam?"

"Yes, just one. Don't go easy on these two,"

"MA!" Both Huifan and Hungjian exclaimed.

"Ma?" the headmaster asked.

"They're mine, yes. Just... don't tell ANYONE!" Lin growled. "Or I'll have your job, your academy, and your title stripped immediately!"

"Yes ma'am!"

The earthbending test was easy. It included an agility exam, a forms assessment, conditioning exam, history exam, navigation exam, and then skills test exam. Then they finished with a two day long tournament and then a one day long mock battle simulation.

Both Hungjian and Huifan passed, Hungjian just barely and Huifan with flying colors. Then came the metal.

Huifan stood among a hundred other metalbenders all in their early to mid twenties.

First skill. Move the coin.

 _Seriously?_ thought Huifan as she stood in a horse stance waiting for her turn.

 _Seriously?_ thought Lin as she watched with the proctors seeing if there was anything else she needed to modify about the way the Academy system conducted the metalbending mastery exams. Since she was the daughter of the original master of the art, her opinion held quite a bit of weight.

"THAT WAS PATHETIC! How the hell did you last four years in this academy?! Are you even an earthbender?" the proctor yelled at one young man who failed to move the coin out of the slit in the bamboo stick.

Huifan gulped.

"Yeshe," the proctor said coming to face the skinny, flat-chested fifteen-year-old girl.

"HAI!" Huifan yelled punching the coin. The proctor ducked to avoid the coin as it flew across the room into the opposite wall, denting and splitting the metal and sticking in the stone behind the finish.

The proctor looked at her, said nothing and moved on to the next kid. Huifan let out a sigh of relief then glanced at her mother who sat with the other teachers looking bored as they watched each of the metalbending mastery candidates attempt to move their coins.

Next skill, sculpting.

"I could do that!" Jinkun said excitedly from the spectator stands.

They were all shown a metal sculpture of a sabertooth moose lion and then made to turn around. Huifan smirked. Unlike most others, she had seismic sense. She made her sculpture perfectly and passed the memory and detail retention part of the exam.

The next was a resourcefulness exam. Sparing six non-bending weapons masters at once on a sheet of ice without being allowed to sink them into the ground beneath. There was one swordsman, one man with a grappling hook, one with two hook swords, one with a bow and arrow, one with a spear, and one with two daggers.

All of the weapons were platinum, Huifan realized. The only metal the student was provided with was two small, steel marbles. Screw the marbles! _Let's show them what a Yeshe is made out of!_

"HEY STRONG GUYS! CHECK THIS OUT!" Huifan said spinning the marbles in a horizontal circle just like how her grandfather did in all of his photos with fans from all over the world. The weapons specialists froze, stunned. WTF... She took one step forward, spun with her arm bending in an upper cut and then a hook and flung the swordsman's weapon into his comrade by the handle, knocking his helmet off. She ripped the blade from the sword right out of its grip and bent it into a cable tying the archer to his bow and quiver of arrows and then picked him up and threw him into the guy with the hook swords. She tripped the man with the grappling hook by wrapping the chain around his ankles and then hooking the man with the daggers before slamming them into each other.

 _Ha!_ She thought as she turned to face the instructors. They all looked just as shocked as the fellow mastery candidates, all except her mother who's frown could not be deeper. Huifan shrunk a little.

Next skill. Armor.

"Just put... it... on..." the instructor ordered. Huifan smiled remembering practicing with her mother when she was as young as seven. She'd fallen over first few times but got strong enough to take the hit to the back by the time she was nine. Many people fell down during their exam rather clumsily or pinched themselves between the chest plate because their aim was just slightly off. Huifan bent hers on perfectly and made a blade out of the sleeve then retracted it and stood up tall, waiting. PASS!

The next tasks required each student separate all the iron from a piece of ore, creating perfectly symmetrical, hollow geometric objects out of a nondescript lump of tin, then detect a break in a small machine, travel via cables, and fight with gauntlet blades and cables.

The final test was blindfolded sparring. Huifan watched as young men covered their heads and were pelted into the ground screaming. Why test them on something nobody was allowed to teach? Toph Beifong wanted to seismic sense to remain strictly within the Beifong family so that they would forever be safe. She decided that any one else who wanted to learn seismic sense had to prove themselves worthy and able, by having the acuity to figure out the technique themselves.

Then they blindfolded Huifan. She kept her arms open. She waited and listened for the first of twenty opponents surrounding her to attack. She ducked into the earth and the attacker hit his comrade. She resurfaced and whipped a cable out of a spool on her waist and then removed sections of metal from her gauntlet to make more versatile strips and disarmed some enemies of their metal and fought. She stayed in the middle and danced around their attacks, feeling the metal even in the air as it came towards her. She was a prodigy in seismic sense and everything. She defeated them easily. Of those 100 metalbenders testing only she and six others passed.

"Congratulations kiddos," Lin said draping an arm over her eldest son and daughter. "You're both masters now."

"Does this mean we have to call them Master Hungjian and Master Huifan?" Jiexue asked looking over at them.

"No, but only because they're family. Typically you use master with a teacher, an authority figure of some sort, or an adult you meet on the street. Someone you don't really know. Someone with whom you lack familiarity." Lin explained.

"Really?"

"Yeah! You don't call Aunt Zumzu, Firelord Izumi, because she's family, but you do call Captain Peng by his rank and title because he is an authority figure to you."

"Oooooooo okay!"

**Author's Note:**

> Happy reading! As always! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


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